Granny Bee's ABCs and the Author's Life Story that Created this Book

I sit down with my longtime friend Billy Thompson to trace how a single family moment turned into *Granny Bee’s ABCs* and why it took 19 years to bring it to print. Along the way, we talk about grief, health setbacks, sharecropping roots, and the mindset Billy uses to keep moving with joy and purpose. 
• the origin story behind the name Granny Bee and the decision to honor Billy’s mom through a children’s book 
• the real-life setbacks that delayed publishing, including loss, a car accident, cancer in the family, and glaucoma 
• why self-publishing takes a team, plus lessons learned from an earlier Amazon book 
• early writing memories, including a teacher who defended Billy’s work and changed his confidence 
• growing up sharecropping and how it shaped goals around owning property, having enough, and helping family 
• the long road to college, football tryouts, injuries, and the “never quit” work ethic 
• behind-the-scenes stories from being a movie extra and why he still wants to do more 
• how Billy promotes the book through schools, libraries, Head Start programs, and online platforms 
• building a broader learning brand with an ABC song, coloring pages, and future books on bullying and life lessons 

https://learnwithgrannybee.com

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Transcript

Reuniting With Billy And His Story

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Supporting the supporting the beyond existing on a cat. There's people different co-workers that you've had through the years. But there's just a few that really stick out as special. And like you've got your inside jokes, and I don't know, you just really get along and you may not see each other for ten years, but you just kind of pick up where you left off, and uh that's what my guest Billy is to me. He's highly regarded to so many, and uh he's also a mentor to many people as well. He's also one of the most positive people I know, and after this episode, I'm sure you will agree. Billy, welcome to the Beyond Existing Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

Hi, thank you very much for having me. I'm glad to be here and and be able to share some information as best I can to help your listeners. Um but like you said, one of the things for sure, I haven't seen each other in a long time, but we had great conversations, just picked up where we left off from.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

That's exactly right. So, Billy, he's been a little bit busy. So like I said, we worked together and then he pursued his masters, then he became assistant principal, and then uh later moved into the principal role. Then uh he decided to retire. But that doesn't mean that he just stopped and he's sitting in his recliner watching TV, correct?

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Is that Billy actually published a book and that's um what we're gonna talk about today, just the the book publishing and then

The Moment Granny B Was Born

SPEAKER_03 2:20

what led to that. The name of his book is Granny B's ABCs. And Billy, if you could, could you tell us how that idea even came about?

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Well, this is my book, Granny B's ABCs, and it actually came about uh wanted to find a way to get young children uh more involved in reading and learning at an early age, uh even before they got to kindergarten. And one of the things that happened, my daughter, Kaylin, uh, my mom, let me say this, my mom's name is Beatrice. And so once I had taken Kaylin down to our little hometown of Roland, North Carolina, to see my mom, she'd always go to her friend's Ms. Maddie's shop and buy Kaylin these frilly dresses, Easter dresses, buy the patent leather shoes, the little socks with the lace and the whole nine yards. But this particular Saturday, I had Kaylin on my shoulder, and my mom was walking back and forth through all the dresses and whatnot. And Kaylin said, Daddy, look at look at Granny. She's walking like she's walking through the flowers. Look at Granny B walking through the flowers. The dresses look like flowers to her. And so that's how Granny B's ABCs came about because she always called her from that day on Granny B instead of Granny.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah, so that just stuck and you couldn't let go of that.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Couldn't let go of it, and it just stuck in my mind. And so I thought to myself, they pay honor to my mom, and once something is written, then it becomes immortal. And so pretty much she'd be remembered for the rest of the eons, uh, years and years from now, because somebody might pick up this book and

Why Publishing Took Nineteen Years

SPEAKER_04 4:10

say, Oh, I remember uh Granny B.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

So you published Granny B in March of 2024.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

But it had been written since 2005, so you went you held on to this book for 19 years before you actually published it. But it's not like you were sitting on your laurels. You had a a lot going on. You you were working on your masters, your wife, she was Karen, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

During those years. And then your mother passed away. Yeah, other family members that passed.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Exactly. My mom passed away, uh, my sister, this all occurred in 2012. My mom passed away, my sister passed away first, and then I had two aunts to pass away. I had a niece, uh, two cousins, and it all just happened within the 2012 range. With them passing, not only that, but then also discovered that I had glaucoma and I lost the vision in my right eye. I'm legally blind in my right eye. So there were a lot of things that were happening from 2005 up until that 2012 range and whatnot, where at that time I just I was writing, but I just couldn't seem to bring myself to find out how to go about publishing. And so and that's one of those are some of the things that were the deterrent to keep me from pu publishing at that time.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Yeah, yeah, but and then you also had a car accident.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Yeah, I was sitting at um in traffic and this guy just slammed into the back of me, and he was like, I am so sorry, I sneezed, and when I sneezed, my foot slipped off the brake and I hit the gas. We both end up at going to the hospital and whatnot, and end up having some problems as far as my back and my neck was concerned, and went through a regiment of pills, a regiment of shots and injections and different things of that nature. Well, you know, thanks to God, everything worked itself out because they wanted to do surgery, but uh I wasn't up for that because too many people that I knew that had back surgery or neck surgery, anything happened with the spine, they had to always go back for other surgeries. And so I didn't want to go through that pain or that trouble. And everything has worked out great. I haven't had to have any surgery surgeries. There are times that I do have some pain or whatever, but it's nothing that I can't live with.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

When was this? Was this before or after your mom passed away?

SPEAKER_04 7:03

This was before actually my mom passed away. Um with the uh with the accident. This is before.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

Sorry, that was just one thing after another with you.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

It was uh what I call uh said the domino effect or whatnot of things that could happen with a person's life. And um and all those things were going on, like you say, with um my wife and with the accident and the whole nine yards, then with the death of the family members, and then just pretty much wanting to well, I can remember in 2013 when I went for my um no, yeah, I went for my mid year review with all the administrations of RDF Station Schools when they had asked me because they said you guys are doing pretty good at States with Middle. And I know we'll probably talk about this a little later or whatever, but uh and they said you're doing pretty good at Statesville Middle. What are you gonna do to top it next year? And I said, I don't know because I'm not gonna be there. And they're like, Well, why? What's going on? And I said, you know, told them about all the different things that were happening. And I said to them that Statesville Middle at that time was a school that needed someone that could be a principal that could be there every day for the students, for the parents, for the teachers as well, and everybody else in the building. Because I always felt that everybody in the building contributed to the education of our children. And so they were like, Well, we have this thing, the dean of students is coming up if you'd like to do that. And so that's when I went from being uh principal to being a dean of students.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

That's great that the school system worked with you.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Yes, most definitely. Yeah, I had um a good mentor within a good mentor and all the folks who pretty much supported me with what was happening. And so that made it made it easier to make that transition from being um someone who happened to have most of the control to being able to be someone that just added

The Hard Lesson About Publishing Alone

SPEAKER_04 9:20

to what was going on and encouraged them to do the best that they could.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Now, Granny B, that's not your first book.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

No, no, it's not no, it's not. I did not I did not realize that I actually had published a book a long time ago. And it's called Get Your Head Out of the Clouds, and it was basically affirmations and different things to help people to brighten their day, to read something each morning that would brighten their day. And it just happened that uh someone had printed a book and I was like, hey, if they could do it, I can do it too. So I just threw some together and sent it off to Amazon, and they actually they actually published it and everything. And I I had forgotten about it until I published Granny B's ABCs. And my publisher, Juli Juliet Clark, said, Do you know that you have another book that's on Amazon? And I was like, No, I don't. And she said, Yes, you do. And so she told me to go and look, and sure enough, it jarred my memory, and I was like, Okay. So I bought a copy of it, and I was like, Man, I know why no one bought this book. It was like I I did it too fast. So I did I didn't have anyone to do the editing for me that I should have like what I've learned from publishing Brandy B, as far as having an editor, having someone that does illustrations, the whole nine yards. It takes a whole team in order to publish a book. And at that time, I was a team, and and my team didn't do so well on that first book.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Your team didn't do so well. The team of me.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

The team of me, that was it. There's no uh I and team or whatnot, but there's a meeting with me and then that was me.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Yeah, there you go. You were like Roscoe Jenkins.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

That's right. The team of me.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

The team of me. So can people still buy that book on Amazon?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

No, don't buy that book. Don't buy that. Don't buy that book. Now, at some point in time, some point in time, I will republish it. And then whatever republish it, I'll be glad to let folks know because it's just me. Now I have a real team that's supporting me, and I can I can make this one uh much better than what it

A Grandfather Story And Being Believed

SPEAKER_04 11:44

was.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Now, the I think this is so sweet. So the first story you ever wrote was about your grandfather. Can you tell us a little about that?

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Yeah, my grandfather was a sharecropper. Not only had he reared his children or whatnot, but he also took uh in myself from my family, as far as me, my brothers, and my sister. Then we had um another aunt and uncle whose children also live with him. And he he and my grandmother took all of us in. There was eight of us total or whatnot. And we pretty much, like I say, he would walk two miles, five miles, whatever it took to be able to bring, because we didn't have a car at the time, to be able to bring food from the store back to the house so that we have things to eat or whatnot. Um, a lot of the stuff we grew on the farm, but you know, the essential things like sugar and flour and different things of that nature, we didn't couldn't make that or whatnot, or didn't make it. And so he was just very special in that he was a quiet man, but he loved his family. He worked hard. He was a sharecropper, and and as a sharecropper we worked uh land that was about 300 acres. And with 300 acres, either we did tobacco, we did corn, we did cotton.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Um, can you tell people where this was?

SPEAKER_04 13:15

Oh, I'm sorry. And well, I gotta say Robinson County, but it's Robison County. Robinson. But if you're from there, it's Robinson County. Oh, okay. If you you can always tell someone that's from that home area or if they just happen to pa pass by and just know about it. Because if you were from there, you're gonna say Robinson. If you're not from there, you'll say Robison. Because R-O-B-E-S-O-N, Robinson.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

So we know how to say it if we ever go through there.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

If you ever go through there, be sure to say Robinson. Then they'll think you then they'll then they'll think you're from there, but not.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

From there. We're local.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Yeah, yeah, thank you low. The little town that that we call our little town is probably about two miles from the South Carolina border. We're closer to Myrtle Beach, as far as um probably being maybe an hour if that from Myrtle Beach. Okay. Now, with the way the transportation is set up, probably can get there less than an hour, depending on where you are. But I was actually born in Dillon, South Carolina. But as I was speaking about my grandfather and the first story that I wrote, and I wrote it about him, and we happened to have a uh student teacher who was with us in our English class at the time, and she looked at my story and she said, There's no way that you could have written this, and these things can't be true, and da-da-da-da. But Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy was my teacher, and she said, Billy is an excellent writer, and if he wrote this, then if he said he wrote this, then he did. And where this girl had actually gave me an F on the paper because she thought that I had uh pleasurized up, yeah, made it up and Miss Lucy changed the grade and I got an A on it.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Good. I'm so glad she took up for you and did that.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

That's one of the things I can say that throughout this journey I've always had folks uh other than just family members, folks that have been in my corner and that helped me come through some rough patches.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

So did she think you made it up just because she was ignorant to how poor people could be and that they don't have transportation, or was your writing just that good or what?

SPEAKER_04 15:39

I think it was a combination of both, and that um because you know, if you grew up in a household where you had both your parents, you had plenty of food to eat, you had transportation, and you didn't have these type of issues that sharecroppers actually went through, then you would think that it's just all a fabrication, unless you that thing that they always say, um walk a mile in another man's shoes or whatnot before you try to adjust and say things about them. And so that was that was I think that was the situation with her. And she just, you know, said this can't be real.

From Class Trouble To A Turning Point

SPEAKER_04 16:18

One of the things I did not tell you, but actually, when I was in junior high, well, let's back up a second. When I was in elementary school, I was a bit of a bad boy, okay? And I I used to I had real difficulties with two fifth grade teachers. Um both ladies. One was with was at the beginning of the year, and the other one finished out the year after this lady left.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Um, you didn't make her leave, did you?

SPEAKER_04 16:46

I might have, not sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

That's why I knew the kid.

SPEAKER_04 16:51

See, that's why I I understood the tornado so well. You know, exactly. I walked that walk. And and anyway, um, the first one was a big uh musical great club person. We would go through lessons, but we always had to do uh singing throughout the day. And she had us all singing, she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes, and all of a sudden she just stopped class. She was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, something's wrong here. Somebody, something's wrong with somebody's voice. And so she went through, had each row the sing. And she would walk down the row, and then she was like pulling people out. And I was like, I know good well she can't talk about me because I know I can sing. I was like Barney Fife from Mayberry, whenever he was in the choir, and they kicked him out of the choir because he couldn't sing. But anyway, she came to she came to our row, and she was walking down the road, and she got to me and she said, It's you. You can't sing. And from that time on we didn't get along so well. And and I always embarrassing. Yeah, and from that time on I sung solos.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

That was bothered line, no one can hear you.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

Exactly. Bottom line. And so then the lady who came after her, she was an artist. So her her degree was in art, but she came and she was teaching. And if you could put a rule in front of me, I couldn't draw a straight line. And I missed recess so many days it was pitiful because she would she would make me stay in to finish my picture before I could go out and do recess. And by the time I finished the picture, it'd be time to come in for recess. So one thing I got to do is go to the door and call the kids and tell them, come on back in the class. And so during that time, my principal, Mr. Howard Davis, he had um, she and I got into a little bit of a discussion, and she didn't like the way I talked to her. So she sent me to the office, and just so happened that Mr. Davis wasn't there that day. And he um came back the next day. As soon as I got the class, I was putting my books down and over to the intercom, it said, Billy Thompson, come to the office. I said, wait a minute, I ain't even had time to do anything yet. I just got here. So I go to the office and I get there, and the secretary just looks at me. I can remember she just looks at me like and she tells me to go straight to his office. So I go to his office and he said, Billy, I back then I had hair. Okay, I had a I had an iPhone. He looked at me and said, Billy, can I use your can I use your pick? Well, wait a minute. He had as much hair as I got now. But he took my pick and he straked it through his head. We said, Okay, you can go back to class. And I was like, wait a minute. The principal called me to his office to use my pick. Whoa, wait a minute. My chest took out, you know? Because the principal had called me to use my pick. So later on I realized he had used reverse psychology on me. And because I quit fighting, I quit being mean, not being mean, but and not necessarily being disrespectful. It was just that if I if you spoke to me in a certain way, I was gonna speak back to you in the way you spoke to me. But that changed after he did that, and I didn't not fight anymore, unless there was somebody that was trying to tear up the school, like do vandalism to the school or whatnot. Then you had you, we had a problem. Back then we went from elementary to junior high. Junior high was from eighth and ninth grade. When I got to junior high school, I remember I was in the class with one of my cousins, and I was like, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be in this classroom. But we had fun all day, and so I didn't try to get out of the classroom. And so we ended up going to the gym. The coach there, Coach Harvey Lowry, he said, Wait a minute, son, I don't think you're supposed to be in this class. You need to go to the office and get them to change your classroom. And so I go to the office, I tell the lady what Coach uh Harvey said, and she said, Well, if we put you in there, that's where you're supposed to be. I said, Fine with me. I go back to class. So the next time we go to the gym, Coach Harvey's there, and he says, Didn't I tell you you're not supposed to be in this class? And I told him what the lady had told me, and so she said, he said, Come on. And he took me up to the office and he had them to change my classes. And that's whenever I got into if you can tell, I w I didn't say it, but my cousin was um EC. Okay.

unknown 21:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

So I got into the regular classes, and once I got into the regular classes, then that's whenever my whole attitude began to change about hey, what Wait a minute. I'm supposed to I knew I was smart, so why wasn't I in these classes in the beginning? And um and I realized though that it was due to my um acting out in the seventh grade that my seventh grade teacher decided he was gonna have the last laugh. And he ended up putting me in those classes.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

But thank God for Coach Harvey. Because um, you know, my family was a good family, but we I would tell you, it's just like almost anyone else within Robinson County, as long as you're nice to them, they'll be nice to you. But if they just not nice to them, then they're not gonna be nice to you.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Now, you wrote a play in the 1990s, so that was after your

Writing Plays And Drafting Books Fast

SPEAKER_03 22:49

first story. She wrote about your grandfather, and then you wrote a play.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Wrote a play called The People of the World versus the Christian Religion. And, you know, it was all about where you had different people who were going to church, but they were, as they call it, uh some people call it playing church, where you go and you and you're doing your praise and worship and you're thanking God for everything, but then as soon as you step off of the church grounds, you're back to doing whatever you wanted to do and not following what the Bible says you should do. And so I wrote this play, and it begins with a church scene where uh the preacher's telling everyone, I think today is a day for testimonies. And about that time, a young lady starts to cry, and she's crying, wailing, and he's like, Sister, what's wrong? And she says, I just can't deal with this anymore. I can't keep sleeping, meeting up with you down to the dew drop in. And not only you, but I've been meeting up with Mr. Joe Barnes too. And this Joe just happened to be an older friend of mine, and he was like, What in the world? Because he didn't know that that was part of the play or whatever. But anyway, anyway, where it comes down to it is just like uh most stories, where the devil thinks that he's won, but then in the end, Jesus steps in and says, But I died for all their sins. And so there's probably about ten different characters in it, and we just go through their trials and tribulations and what's causing them to act out and why they're being the way they're being. But then whenever Jesus comes through, then they know that they don't have to be that way anymore.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, that sounds like a really good play. Um, have you ever presented it to a church that you attended?

SPEAKER_04 24:40

We actually did it in the church, and we actually did it at Staceville High School. Matter of fact, before my mother died, I had taken a copy of it, videotaped, and taken a copy down for her to watch. And she said, Boy, I wonder what you would have been if we would allowed you to talk whenever you were growing up. Because I grew up in that era where children would be heard, no, seen, but not heard. Yeah. And so she was like, I wonder what you would have been if we would just allowed you to talk.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

And so that reminds me, we were the four of us, we were riding somewhere. So when the boys were younger and they were fighting or whatever in the backseat of the car or just being really loud. And I looked at Joe and I said, Boy, I sure miss those days. I sure wish we had those days right now where kids were seen and not heard.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

Not hurt or whatnot. You know, you know, if you ride with your parents anyway, you were in that back seat and you were quiet. That was it.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

You didn't you didn't make peep.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

You're right, I know it. Um, and then also you shared with me that uh you wrote a book in a weekend.

SPEAKER_04 25:54

Oh yeah. Um I had this dream. And it's uh similar to a little bit with my lifestyle or whatnot, because these folks were sharecroppers and they were but then all of a sudden something happened with them and they gained some superpowers. The the story is that where it comes to the end or how it comes about is that um the landowner himself, he was actually missing or sleeping with some of the young girls that were on the properties. And anytime that any one of them got pregnant, then he would either kick them off the farm or they had to send the baby away. And so this young girl, her dad ended up leaving her mom and her, they went to New York. And she grew up there, but then she met a man and she wanted to move back down south. And when she moved back down south, she moved on that property that the guy owned, and she and his wife became good friends. Well, I won't go into telling everything about the book, but anyway, the bottom line it came to me in a dream, and I just sat down and started writing. That it was that Saturday morning, and my wife was like, Are you ever gonna get up from writing and stop writing and spend some time with your family? I said, They can't write now. It's in my mind I need to put that on paper. And so by Sunday, I've written probably about 300 and some pages.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Wow, so are you gonna look at publishing that?

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Yes, that will probably be the next one, but I will say that one is more of an adult book, most definitely. And some people will say, Well, why in the world he go from writing a children's book to this book or whatever? But you have to understand that is just life and that's the way my mind thinks from time to say.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Yeah, but a lot of authors do that because I mean, look at Tom Clancy, he writes children's book and adult.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

That's true. That's true. And so that's what, you know, because mm I have what probably about six or seven different books that I have not published, but I've I've got them on the shelf and I will get to them at some point in time because I plan to be around here for a long time. I plan to be here till I'm 120.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Yeah, 120.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

As long as I'm not a burden to anybody, as long as I'm a burden to anybody, I want him to to lead me here as long as he possibly

Sharecropping And The Drive To Own

SPEAKER_04 28:26

can.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

You told me that there's five things that you wanted to do that has kept you motivated. And I'm gonna read those five things out. Uh number one, you wanted to be an author. Number two, own property.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Number three, he wanted to have enough.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Number four, you wanted to be able to help your family.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

And then number five, he wanted to um act in movies again. Now I think number two, number three, and number four with the way you were brought up, I think all those go together. Uh number two, you said you wanted to own property.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

And I think that goes along with your sharecropping days and we could just spend some time talking about that because I don't think a lot of people quite understand sharecropping. I mean, I do because growing up in South Georgia, you know, my dad and my uncle, they were farmers together and we had a couple of homes like that on the property. But um, I think there's a lot of people that don't. If you could just spend a little bit of time telling us about those sharecropping days and how that influenced your goal of having it enough and being able to help your family members.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Well, most definitely I can because and being a sharecropper, that means that you do not own the land that you're working. Someone else owns the land, and they pay for the materials that you need or whatnot, and you basically grow all the crops, you harvest the crops and the whole nine yards, and then at the end of the season, whether it be tobacco, whether it be corn, whatever it is, at the end of the season, then you get together with the owner of the land and you look at whatever the bills that had to be paid and how much money was made, and then you would get your share and they would get theirs. Now, nine times out of ten, ten times out of ten, really, the sharecropper never came out on top. It would always be where they might just make just enough to survive for whatever period of time it was, but it would always be one bill that pretty much the sharecropper didn't have much control over, and that would be the fertilizer that was used.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

And that has not changed because it's still so expensive.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

And whenever you would look at it, you would think on paper, okay, we made some money this year. And I I would say at least one of the things that happened to me when I was 14, my grandfather actually pulled me in to help do the finances. Um, helped to pay the people and the whole nine yards. And while other kids were running around having fun, I was in the kitchen with him figuring out who we were going to pay on Saturday and how much we had to pay him and whatnot, how many hours they had worked in the whole nine yards. But those were the things that you know, being a sharecropper, you never own your own home. It was always the landowner's home that you stayed in. I can remember one of the first houses that we lived in, it had a front room, which no one slept in unless you were company coming to visit. And then there was a middle room with a pot belly stove where my grandfather and grandmother, my great-grandmother, my sister, my cousin, and me at the time because I was one of the youngest ones that lived there. And then the four, five other boys were in the back room and we had a little kitchen. And the five other boys were in the back room with no heat, but he had um plenty of blankets because my grandma and those they made their own quilts and things like that. But anyway, so that was the first house that we moved to. Didn't have any running water. You had a pump outside, you had to pump your water and bring it into the house.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

And this was the this was the 1960s. This was 1960s when most people had running water and electricity.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

Exactly. And we did not. And then in 1974, 73, we moved to another house on the property, which was a bigger house, and but we still had no running water, we still had no um indoor plumbing. And then in 1975, the owner's mom, who lived in a big white house on the property, she passed away. And once she passed away, the owner allowed my grandfather to move us into the big white house because my grandfather was a lead farmer on the farm. So he got to be the big white house. And it caused quite a bit of controversy sometimes because most people thought that we had plenty of money. We it was like the Jefferson, we were moving on up because now we we had this we had this big white house with a fenced-in uh wraparound. That's right. We had a deluxe house instead of the Deluxe button. And uh and so everyone thought that we had all of a sudden come to all this money and we bought this house and borrowed this land and whatnot, but it still was not ours, you know. Um basically it was never gonna be ours. And and once once the landowner actually died, then we found out most definitely, he didn't take any make any provisions for it to ever be ours because his children came in and they sold the property to developers when they split everything up. And I often say to myself, uh, you know, my grandfather gave that man quite a few years of his life in helping to feed his not only our family, but taking care of his family without him ever having to do any work at all, other than just to bring supplies and seeds or whatever he needs to bring. And I thought I thought to myself, you know, with all that, he could have at least said, you know what, my grandfather was the name was Rufus Thompson. He could have said, you know, Rufus, I'm gonna at least let you have this house and maybe five acres of land. But he didn't do that. And so I was off in college, and I remember calling home, and they were saying that they were moving. And I was like, Where are you moving? And then they told me what all had taken place, and that his children had sold the land, and so then they had to find another place to live. And so they did find somewhere to rent and it went from there. And so when it comes to owning property or whatnot, then that was one of the biggest things in my life that I said, I'm gonna own property, I'm gonna have a house. Being a sharecropper, you live pretty much as they call you either live low on the hog or how on the hog. Okay? How on the hog, you eating ham, you were eating ribs, you were eating all the good parts of the hog. Low on the hog, you eating pig ears, pig feet, and pigtails and whatnot, you know?

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Chitlins and that.

SPEAKER_04 36:08

Chitlins and that. We were eating all those and whatnot. And so pretty much my my motivation was that I was going to own land and that I was gonna be able to help my family to move any way they wanted to be, so they didn't have to go through some of the things that I went through financially. And so that's what pretty much when it came to that, having enough to be able to help and my family and to be able to own property, those were the things that just those are driving forces for me. Because those are things that I still want to do.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Yeah. Uh you said that you even had to walk to school several miles one way.

SPEAKER_04 36:56

Yeah, um what happened was um when it came time for me to go to high school, I was supposed to go to Roland High School, which is only five miles north, which is only five miles. But because most of my cousins went to that school, we have a large family, and most of my cousins went to that school, and during that time, um, they were a bit rowdy, I would say. And I told you rowdy? Yeah, a bit rowdy. And I told my grandma, I said, you know, I don't want to go to that high school. I love my cousins, but if I go to that school and they get into trouble, then I'm gonna be in the trouble with them. So Pembroke High School was the one that I chose to go to, which was about I I say a good six miles from my home. Whereas the other school, I would have had transportation and without a problem, just walked to the bus and get on. But with Pembroke, I had to, it worked out just fine because I on that particular when I first started there, I only had to walk less than a quarter of a mile to catch a bus. Because if you lived on one side of the road, you had to go to Roland. If you lived on the other side of the road, you could go to Pembroke. So I just walked and get on the other side of the road and catch the bus to Pembroke. But then whenever I started with sports, that's when I really had to do some walking. Because, you know, we didn't necessarily have a decent car, but you know, the one that we did have, um if it if it was left for my brothers to come pick me up, they would come to the school, they would be chit-chatting with all the cheerleaders and any other females that would be around. And by the time I got finished with practice, they'd be gone.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

And they did their primaries.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

So I'd be sitting there waiting, thinking, okay, they're gonna come back and get me. They're gonna come back and get me. Nope. Nope, they didn't come back and get me. And so I would just start out walking. And there was some, I would say there were some days that maybe somebody would give me a ride maybe halfway or whatnot. But most of the time I ended up walking the whole way, walking and running, all depends on what kind of homework I had, because we didn't have book bags and different things of that nature. So I had a jean jacket, I'd tie my books up in the jean jacket and throw it over my shoulder. And uh and I'd run and I'd walk, I'd run and I'd walk or whatnot. And uh, but it was like say, with that, um, it didn't deter me from playing sports. It just made me more, I guess, motivated to do better. And um we used uh we used to have a guy who came by every Friday and he would pick up our clothes that we need to have dry clean, and he would take them to the dry cleaners in Lumberton, and then he'd bring them back the next Friday for you. And we always call, I I can't remember his real name, but he always just told me to call him Mr. Nub because he lost one of his hands in a sawmill accident, and he just had this nub for uh a right hand, and he said, just call me nub. And so we always call him Mr. Nub. And Mr. Nubb always talked to me about why, what's his name is Y. E. Tittle. He was a football player, but he wasn't very big, but he was fast, and he was like, you know, Billy, you're just like why E Tittle Tittle. You're like Tittle. You're not you're not big, but you you got some speed and you're quit. And I'm reading about you every every Saturday. I read the paper because you're doing so well in football. And I hated football, to be honest with you. I wasn't even supposed to play football. I was supposed to be a basketball player. I just I didn't start playing football until I was a junior in high school. But that was a way that I did get to college was through playing football.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Yeah.

Walking For Sports And Chasing College

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Well, let's talk about that a little bit. So um your family didn't nobody even went to college. They you told me that they went to military.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

Yeah, my family, the the men uh they either went to the military or they went to work in a factory. Converse rubber company was one of the biggest employers in the area or whatnot. I got to meet Judy Servin, matter of fact. Um because they would have a celebration once a year and he'd come down and visit. So anyway, Dr. J. So um my thing was that I couldn't see myself farming and I couldn't see myself going to the military. And so I was w I was the first person in my family to go to college. Now, since then, many others have gone and going to college and whatnot and doing well, but I was one I was the first person to go to college. Was it easy? No, ma'am, it was not. Because um my first year, Coach Ricky Loch Lear, he took me to Elon to try out for, you know, the coach. And so after we finished with all the drills and everything, we got to the coach's office. And he said, you know, son, I just can't see it. I can't I can't see giving you a scholarship because that would be a waste of money. He said, People down your way, y'all don't play football. Y'all play basketball, baseball, run track. That's what y'all do. And I said, Well, my coach Was he right?

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Was he right there?

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Yeah, he was right. We didn't really because I I told him, I said, I said, Well, my coach sitting here, he was all American for you. And he said, Well, that was a fluke. He was a fluke. Yeah, fluke. He was one, he was one of a kind. That's why he that's why he was able to be an all-American or whatnot. And I'm just not willing to take that chance on you. He said, So I'm gonna tell you what you do. He said, You go on back home. You've already been accepted in the school, and you come in when the other students come in, and then you can walk on to the team. He said, Because I'm gonna ask you a question. I said, What's that? He said, How many games did you win last year? I said, two. He said, How many games did you win the year before that? I said, two. He said, how many games did you win the year before that? I said, I don't know because I didn't start playing until I was a junior. He said, Well, I never played football before. He said, He said, that's why I can't I can't waste money and give you a scholarship. And so I said, okay. So I went back home trying to think now how once we divided everything up and looked at what monies I had coming in through what uh scholarships and grants, I only needed seven. $720 to go to school.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

And that was to Elon College, which is a private school.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

That was the Elon College, a private school. All they need is $720 to go. Some people say, oh, that's a drop in, you know, that's no money. That's no money. But when you are a son of a sharecropper and your mom works in a factory, that is a lot of money to come up with it.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

May as well be $7,200, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:29

Exactly. But my mom told me, she said, you know, you need to ask your uncle. And so I did. I did ask my uncle, because I did have an uncle that was, well, he was he was doing quite well for himself. And I asked him, and he said, you know, Billy, I could I can't really see loaning you this money because you're gonna be off the school. How are you gonna pay me back? And I was like, okay, no problem. And so I ended up taking a job at South of the Border. I worked there, then I worked in Tobacca, and then my mom was saved some money, and we actually came up with the $720, and we were able to pay for me to go to school. But the thing about it was one day I came in from working in the fields, and my grandma said, Your coach called. And I said, Well, it couldn't have been Coach Ricky because he's working in the fields just like I do. And she said, No, it was some other man, a Tally or Tooley. I said, Tally. And she said, Yeah, Coach Tolly. I said, Okay, that's that man at Elon. And he said, Here's his number. So I called him up and he said, Thompson. I said, Thompson. He said, You were supposed to be here last week. I said, No, sir. You told me to come to school whenever the rest of the kids came to school. You told me to come then and to walk on. I don't know where you got that from. You need to get up here now. I'm like, okay. But for me to get from Roland, North Carolina to Elon, that was just like me trying to get to England. Because, first and foremost, didn't have a car to be able to get us there or get me there. And um my um cousin's boyfriend actually had gone to AT, so North Carolina AT. So he knew he knew where Elon was. And he said, Hey, I know where that school is. If you can get me gas money, I'll take you up there. So we scrounged up and we got him enough gas money and everything. By the time we did my packing, got everything together, it was probably about 12 o'clock that night when we got to Elon.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

And nobody would cut you a break and give you anything, would they? No.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

No. You had to work for everything. Work for everything or whatnot. That's why I tried to make sure I tell the young people and try to be mentoring, mentor to the young folks to let them know that life is not always going to be easy, but just never quit. If you got something in mind that you want to do to be of service to other people, to help your family or whatnot, just keep for working at it. But then when we got there about 12 and so he dropped me out and he took off. And I went to the door, the dorm, or whatever they told me to go to this building. And I got there and I knocked on the door. And when I knocked on the door, uh, this guy came to the door. Uh the movie Bobby Boucher, the water boy, where the coach said, that Boucher. And that's by the way this man spoke to me that night and pointed and I followed him. And then he said a few other words. He gave me a key. And I went in the room, and no one was in the room. I was in the room by myself. About 5:30 that morning, he heard a lot of clanging and bullhorns going off and whatnot. So I'm peeping out the door because I don't know what's going on. And someone said, Hey, you need to go down to the equipment room and get your equipment and everything. And so I go down to the equipment room, get my equipment. Then they tell me to go across the field and meet the, be with the team. And I get there and I look and I'm like, wait a minute. This man was bragging on his team and everything. He ain't got no more any more members than what we had on the team or whatever, you know. But after we finished our little drills and everything, then the guy that was leading the drill said, okay, let's go meet the rest of the team. So I get to the top of the hill and I look down, and there's almost a hundred and some kids down there. And I'm like, wait a minute, why this man tell me to come up here? Because the group that I was in first was just running backs, receivers, tight end, quarterbacks, and whatnot. That was a group that I was with first time or whatever. And when we got to see all the, come to find out, I was like number seven or so on the depth chart when it came to running backs. And I was like, I could have stayed at home or whatever. And but anyway, long story short, I went from being number seven on the depth chart to within a few weeks being number three, and then from being number three to being sharing a spot with number two, and then something happened with him, and he ended up leaving school, and so I got to be in the number two position. And whenever I came back, or when I came home for the summer, Coach Ricky had called me and he said, Guess what? You're gonna be starting next year. And I said, starting. I said, What happened to Bobby Hendrix? He's an all-American running back. He said, He's still there, but they've make they're making up a whole new offense where you're gonna be the slot back. And so you're gonna get the start. And I will not I will not tell you a lie, my head got pretty big. And I was like, hey, I've arrived. But that was short-lived because the defensive backs were a little bit angry with me because they never could get a good hit on me. And one day we were going through a 10 by 10 drill, and going through that drill, the defensive back came and I was gonna do a spin move on him. And when I did the spin move, I raised up my left arm and he sort of caught me up underneath the shoulder pads, and I felt like a little pinch, but it it didn't register what was something was going

Injury, Comebacks, And National Titles

SPEAKER_04 50:37

on. So the guy that was leading the drill was a defensive player, and he said, Hey, no, you guys didn't score, you got to go again. And so I said to my two offensive linemen, all y'all gotta do is stack them, stand them up, and I'll shoot through the gap. I shot through the gap, everybody came down on top of me. Everybody got up, I didn't get up. Well, I ended up when I woke up, I was in the hospital gonna find out what had happened when the defensive back hit me, he actually cracked my rib. And then whenever that power came down on top of me, it caused my rib to splinter and puncture my lung. And so I did not play a single down of football my sophomore year. And so when I came back my junior year, the coach said, Okay, Thompson. I said, Thompson.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

Thompson.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

He said, Do you want to play receiver? I said, No, coach, they get hit too. I want to play defensive back. He said, Well, you know, we got quite a few people over here playing defensive back. He got to work like he did when you were playing a running back spot. And I said, no problem. And so again, by the time the season started, I was being I was playing nickel, the nickel back, my junior year, and then my senior year ended up starting that week corner. And so pretty much my time at Elon um was a good time and a lot of learning on the field and off the field.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

Yeah, that that never quit, keep working attitude.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

That's it. That's it. You never quit, you just keep working. Matter of fact, that's what uh the running back coaches told me. I said, because I went and had a long talk with him because the first away game, you know, they put the names up on the board and you go and you look and you see if your name's on the board. So my friend who was the receiver, he said, Well, our names aren't on there. I said, that's okay, let's just hang around and help them load up everything. Because back home, if the boys stayed around and helped the load, we take them to the game to help them know to unload it for us. So we did. We stayed there and we helped load up everything. And one of the saddest moments that I had in playing football for Elon was watching that bus pull off and them waving by to us. So we dropped our heads and put our tails between our legs, and we decided to go get some lunch. And we walked into the cafeteria, and when we walked in, the baseball players were in there, and Eugene Drumwright, who was quite a character, he was one of the leaders on the baseball team, and he looks at the both of us. He says, Hey, you guys play football, don't you? And that was a moment because somebody recognized that we played football. And we said, Yeah, yeah, we play football. He said, It must not be no good because the bus just left 30 minutes ago. So again, though. You were built up and displayed it just that clean or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 53:37

And so I went to see the coach and I said to him, I said, What do I have to do to be on that bus the next time it goes on? And that was one thing that he said, just keep working. Just keep working.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

So defensive back, you made it all the way up to starting for that.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

Yep. And we actually won two national championships. We won the 1980 and 1981 NAIA national champions. And I was telling you, there's nothing greater than be a champion. A national champion.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

That's wonderful. So going on back to the five things you wanted to do, this last one is being in movies again.

Movie Sets From Shallow Hal Onward

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Can you just briefly uh explain to the listeners about your movie experience?

SPEAKER_04 54:24

My first movie experience, I well, I didn't let me go back one second. And that is when I first got in back into teaching, uh when I first started teaching, I actually was in 1982. And I was at Burlington Williams High School as an interim teacher for a PE person or whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 54:44

Mm-hmm. And I said to myself, after that interim was over with, I'll never teach again.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

And so psych.

SPEAKER_04 54:54

Well, I was out of teaching, I was out of teaching until I was 40 years old. I was 22 then. I was out of teaching until I was 40 years old. And I was working for Hood, but all of a sudden, uh the different the work that I was doing seemed to dry up and I couldn't get a contract. And end up saying to myself, how am I going to earn some money to be able to support my family and everything? And I said, you know what? I think I'll do substitute teaching. So I went to the substitute teaching class in Iredell County here, called three schools, I think, after I finished with the classes, told them that I finished with the classes, looking forward to working with them. Myra Bro Shun called me the very next day and asked me if I would come and sub at West Middle School. And from that day and I was there, that was in 1999. That was in the 90s, because I think it was 1999 that I went to do the substitute teaching and then figured out, wait a minute, I like this pretty much now. I think I just had a bad experience. And so went from being a substitute teacher to going back to school and getting my teaching certification to teach social studies, and then went from there to becoming assistant principal, then a principal.

SPEAKER_03 56:23

Yep. So being as close as we are to the Charlotte area and made it where you could be in a couple of movies. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_04 56:34

Matter of fact, the very first night that they were supposed to introduce me as a teacher at the board of um education meeting, I couldn't be there because I was actually being filming uh Shallow in Shallow Howe down in Charlotte. For some reason or another, I saw it in the paper. They were looking for extras, and I thought to myself, hey, I can do this. And so I went down and I actually got to be in the movie Shallow Howe. And then after that movie, a couple years later, I got to be in the movie.

SPEAKER_03 57:07

Did you get to meet anybody? Oh, Wynnet Howtress. Did you meet Wynnet How True?

SPEAKER_04 57:12

Yes. Yes, let me tell you. I did not even know it was her. Okay? Now we have well, when you first get there, they tell you that if the quickest way to get thrown off of any set is to ask one of the actors or actresses for an autograph. Don't bother them. If they want to talk to you, they'll talk to you. So anyway, we go to lunch, and man, they had a spread. They had some of everything as far as food was concerned. And this lady was behind me, and I didn't really pay any attention because uh I was talking to a guy that was in front, but I did sort of glance back and say to her, ma'am, if you want to, you can go ahead of me. And she said, No, you guys work just as hard as I do. You go ahead. And I didn't think any more about it. Then when we sat down to eat, the guy that I was talking to, he said, Matt, do you know who you were talking to? I said, No, who was I talking to? He said, That was Gwyneth Patrol. I said, What? And because Gwynda only, really, she was tall, seemed real tall or whatnot, you know. And the only thing I can remember was she had on like this half-type top and like a little blue jean type mini skirt, and then had a belt, uh chain-type belt that was going around it. He said, Yeah, that was Gwyneth Powtra that you were talking to. I was like, Okay, well, I ain't get kicked off the set. I guess she she must have uh she and she actually engaged with me or whatever. So anyway, I got to meet her and I met uh Jack Black as well, and then the lady who played the bigger lady whenever she was Yeah, the bigger version of Gwyneth. Yeah, of Gwyneth for whatnot. And I just saw I just saw her walking through, but I didn't get to meet her.

SPEAKER_03 59:09

Didn't you tell me that was um Lulu from the Dukes of Hazards? That was her daughter.

SPEAKER_04 59:14

Yeah, that was her daughter. That was Lulu's daughter, huh? Yeah, from the Duke of Hazards. The company called me a few years later and asked if I would like to be in Talladega Nights.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Now in Shallow Howl, he said that when they are at Freedom Park in Charlotte, that's the scene you were in.

SPEAKER_04 59:36

Yeah, my scene, my scene, only I know when I was could be seen or whatnot, because uh I was a blur with my family. And um it was during the time whenever the young lady was trying to get the man to be her boyfriend, but he didn't want to be her boyfriend because she had that one long toe. When the camera was on her toe and then it slowly panned up, and you could see her face right behind her. I could see me and my makeshift family walking down along the side of the uh the little lake area there. Because that's the only reason why I knew. Oh, wait a minute, that's me back there. What not?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

So you said that same company they called you to be in Taladega Nights?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

Yeah, called me to be in Talladega Nights and totally different budget, okay? Because if you didn't get there on time with Talladega Nights, you might not get anything to eat because the host already got all the food pretty much, and they they had the basics. They didn't have all the food like they did with Winnipeg and those. But with that, I got to meet Michael Clark Duncan. I got to meet um, I didn't meet Will Farrell, but the the little blonde-headed guy that was in the movie with them, I got to meet him and the curly head guy. I played the part of a firefighting Ohley? Yeah. I made a uh I I was playing the part of a firefighter. And so I have much respect for firefighters after I had to wear that suit. And whenever I first when I first got there that morning, it was cold, okay? So that suit was nice and warm. About 10:30, 11 o'clock, it started warming up, and by lunchtime, I think I had lost about five pounds from sweating. From because I had to carry, I was carry, I didn't have I carried two fire extinguishers, probably less than 20 feet. That was my role.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

I have to look for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:43

No, no, no, you won't see me because I looked for that part, and I said, wait a minute. I said, wait a minute. I said they cut that scene out because I said, I could have stayed there and been one of those guys. Remember whenever he thought he was on fire and he was on a race and killed his clothes up. I said, I could have been one of those firefighters uh chasing him.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:04

I thought maybe he were.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

No, well, they told me because the young lady who was an assistant um what do you call him, production manager, she came over and she said, you know, you've been working really hard today. And I know you ain't got to walk far, but that suit's hot. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to get you some water and go sit on the back of that trailer and just take it easy for the rest of the day. And I was like, Oh, I'm getting pages to sit here. That's what I thought had to tell him, right? And sure enough I did, but the bottom line had that might have been one of the scenes that I could have been in had I not been sitting on the back of that trailer all week. But anyway, um those guys want you to have a heat stroke. That's what it was. But those guys were very nice enough. And what what would happen would be that I'd walk my little paces and stop on my spot, and then they would come along and they would be talking to each other, and then they would yell, cut after they said the last line. And so that's why I would have known that I would have, if they'd have kept that scene in, people would have seen my face.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:13

But that's just the way the ball bounces.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

This guy that I worked with at River Bend, he was in Talladega nights too. Oh he was an extra. It was where they filmed the the fight scene. Oh anyway, they were fighting and they were talking about um the little pancakes craps. He was he was one of the big guys in the background. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:39

Okay. Yeah, and see, I like and I like doing the background work being an extra or not and uh hope to be able to do more. Yeah. And hope hope to be able to do more of it, but it has to be limited to how far it is because vision or whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

And um with your glaucoma. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:03

And so pretty much something around the Charlotte Statesville area, that'd be fantastic, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:09

Hey, I liked my idea of you just getting a Tesla or letting it drive you.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

No, that's okay. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:17

You're still gonna be in control.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

That's like hey, one eye is better than not having any control at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

Yes. Now, so you took a break from any kind of like being extra or in a movie until recently. Can you tell us a little bit about that one?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:39

Just um last year, my wife's cousin, Roland Waddell, he is producer, and so he had come home to visit, and we were all sitting there, we were talking, and so he asked me if our church had any vans, and I was like, Yeah, we do. He said, Well, for the movie that we're shooting over in Gibsonville, we need some vans to be able to transport people back and forth from the hotel. Just wondering if, you know, your pastor would lease us the vans. And so I put them in contact with each other, but before I did that, I said, Rowan, wait a minute, man. I said, you know that I like being in movies too. Why come you didn't tell me about the movie that you were doing? He said, Oh, Billy, no problem. He's I tell you what, I'm gonna call the Wardrobe post, tell them that you're gonna come down and get fitted for an outfit and you're gonna get to be in this movie or whatever. I said, okay, cool, no problem. So I go down and I'm playing the role of a slave because the movie is titled The Bard, B-A-R-D. And it's about a young man. He watched his father being lynched, but he grew up, a lady took a liking to him and taught him how to read, but he couldn't write at the time. And so The way that he would sell his poetry, he would speak it to people and they'd have to write it down. And it reminded me of whenever I was growing up and my cousin would pay me to write love letters to the girlfriends.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

But uh but I was your family was the first to notice your gift.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:20

They were. They were. Excuse it sometimes, but they were. Okay. But uh but because of, you know, being shot over in in Gibsonville, they would have early start times and whatnot. Sometimes they'd be on set at 5 30 in the morning. And I couldn't drive that far. When I did get the chance to be down there, it just so happened that that day they weren't starting until about 10 30. And so I got to go down and I got to see all the different scenes and different things they were doing. And it's gonna be a really great movie. It should be coming out, if not this year, next year. But it it's it's called Barb.

Early Literacy And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

That does sound good. Now, getting back to your book, Granny B's ABCs, why did you choose the children's book?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:14

You know, my um aunt taught me how to read, great aunt. She taught me how to read when I was three years old. She was a maid and her husband was a butler for this lawyer over in Greensboro, North Carolina. And anytime they threw out any books, she would bring them home. I seemed to be the only one who I guess took interest in learning from those books. And so I would spend time whenever they came home on the weekends, I would spend time with her just learning how to read. And so pretty much from that my mindset was that if I could learn how to read at three, then other children can too. And I feel that the earlier that you're able to teach your children to read, the more successful that your children would be. Because they begin to gather more knowledge about the world, not just from people telling them about it, but for them reading and knowing about it for themselves. And so if I could get Granny B in the hands of preschoolers, then well, even children as young as four, it might even be some. Well, I know there's some out there that age three can still learn to read earlier. And so pretty much with Granny B in ABCs, I wanted to do something that was different, using different words and using vivid illustrations, which Amanda did a fantastic job on all the illustrations within the book. And it it's something that will draw the children's attention and want them to be able to learn more. And so as I move forward with this brand, I'm hoping to bring in more materials where they're learning sight words, where they're learning to do writing, and even begin to be doing some basic math before they even get to the first grade.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

Okay. Yeah, because there's so much pressure now. Kindergarten's not just kindergarten anymore.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:17

Well, exactly, not anymore. Nope, not anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:21

They didn't even have kindergarten wasn't even that big when I was coming along. I know I it was the church kindergarten is what I attended and a lot of my friends, that's what they attended too.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:32

Mm-hmm. See, we didn't even have kindergarten.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

Um you um you got to be a kid until you turn eleven on the farm. Then once you turn eleven, that's when you had to go to the field or to whatnot to work. Okay. Um I remember many days crying, wanting to go to the field to work with the older boys because they made me stay home with the girls or whatnot, and I didn't like that. I wanted to go with the boys. Well, once I turned 11 and my first day of going to the field to work, I wanted to stay home with the girls after that. So they getting up at 5 30 in the morning and not getting back home to the dark or whatever. That was that was for the birds.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:19

So you had a lot of boys that would quit school around age eleven to go work in the fields.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:24

No, no, no, no. This is they would stay in school. You still be in school, but yeah, but this is during tobacco season when it was summertime.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:31

Oh, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you go to work then most definitely, and and you had either you could be the driver of the mules with the wagons, or you could be in the barn where you hand the tobacco to someone that's stringing it on.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

String it up to dry it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:50

To dry it out. And that was what you did not want to do. You wanted to be in the field. You know, you either be wanted to be a cropper in the field or you wanted to drive the mule. Driving the mule was with my first job. And we had this mule, and at 12 o'clock, no one told me. They all laughed though, but no one told me. At 12 o'clock, this mule knew when 12 o'clock was. It was gonna go to the barn regardless of what you did. And I'm trying to pull this mule, the ropes, to make this mule go one way where he's supposed to go. And my grandfather hollering, let him go, let him go. Because he was tearing up the roads of tobacco to get to where he wanted to go. So I finally let him go and he went straight down the middle of the roads that he was supposed to go down, and he went straight to the barn where he was supposed to be. But see, everybody got a big laugh because I didn't know that. I'm fighting with this mules to stay in the field.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:46

And those mules are stubborn enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:49

Oh yeah, almost definitely. And this is what my grandfather was like, let him go, just let him go.

Marketing The Book And Using AI

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

To promote the book, what all did you do?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:59

In promoting the book, I've you know, gone well, a lot of stuff on online at first. Just putting posts and different things out on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, uh, Pinterest, wherever I could, posting a lot of things about the book. But then also just being able to go to different schools and talk with principals or assistant principals, sometimes talking with them media coordinators and telling them about my book and how I would love to be able to come out and read to the kids. Um, went to the local library and actually gave them a couple copies of the book so that it would be on hand for children to be able to read it and go from there. Went to the Head Start programs and talked with them. And so a lot of the different things that I'm doing or have done, I took a little bit of a break from it for a little while. But just getting back started, using some stuff from AI uh helped me to write. I have an ABC song that um I gave it the words and they put it to a tune for me. And so that would be part of uh the brand as well, where folks can actually go in and download that song. They can actually be able to uh have a coloring book that they'll be able to children be able to color in the ABCs and the pictures and whatnot for themselves as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:23

So what's your goal with Granny B's ABCs?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:27

My goal is to be able to get Granny B and the ABCs not only into the schools, but into homes as well. And then the book itself, the lead from the ABCs to, like I said earlier, other things such as math and li life lessons. Matter of fact, one of the books that I wrote about Granny B is where is dealing with bullying and this boy is being bullied, and Granny B actually takes him and the guys that are bullying him back through time to show them how people lived and how bullies have always been in existence, but most of the time bullies are only bullies because they are not being heard in the right form. So they tend to tease and pick on other kids, or they might be missing something in life themselves. So they pick at other kids to take the pressure off of them. And then Granny B has another one called uh Granny B in the tree. And it's where is the moral of their story is you reap what you sow. And it's written in back it would be like the uh 15, 1600s, or where people lived in villages and things. So, like I said, there's several on the sh on the shelf. I just gotta take them off.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:52

Okay. So the website is www.learn with grannybee.com. Okay. So what all will people find on that website?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:03

Uh, right now it's still in the construction, but you will find where you can become part of the honeybee club. And that's where I call the people who are give me their emails to be able to correspond with them. They're honeybee. And so you'll be able to join the honeybees club. You'll be able to look at some of the different products that are going to be coming their way up. And so, because I can say with the honey, with other books, with other materials such as the coloring book, the granny bees song, another one is the for adults or children for the family, uh, people use soap all the time. And when it's too small, they usually just throw it away. Well, or have something where they can save that soap and be able to continue to use it until there's just no longer any soap left, but you get still get good use out of it. So you save money on buying soap.

Daily Faith, Purpose, And Determination

SPEAKER_03 1:16:01

Billy, if there is one word that I would use to describe you, it would be determination. I know that when I asked you like what just kept you motivated because you just went through so much, especially in such a short time period before you put this book out, you said I said I could and I would after all the diagnosis, car accident, loss of family members. What do you wake up every day saying to yourself?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:28

Every day I wake up and I say, This is the day that the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it. And so with that, I do everything in my power to be able to add to not only my life, but the life of others. Because I believe that everybody was put on this earth to be of service. Everybody has a purpose. And you just have to find out what your purpose is and do no harm in doing your purpose. And as I always tell people, if I do cause any problems or if I do hurt someone, trust me. It's never intentional, it's not something that's within my heart or my nature to do. But sometimes people might not get what you're trying to do and take offense to it or whatnot. So that's when you have to have honest communication with folks and just work things out.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:16

Yeah. I've never, ever heard you be ugly or lose your temper or anything with people. The only way I know when you're getting frustrated is there's a way that you'll say, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

Ma'am.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:33

A dear friend of mine was um and laughing. Right. She worked with me at Stageville Middle.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

And this teacher was the West Middle too.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:42

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:43

With us, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:44

This teacher was asking me that could she purchase something or something. She was asking me about when I was a principal. And I said, ma'am, and explained to her. And she asked again and went on. And I said, Ma'am. And Andy walked to the door and said, He's already said ma'am two times. If he gets to a third ma'am, you might want to be leaving the one. She said, If you haven't noticed, anytime that he's not going to agree with you on something, he will say, ma'am.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:24

That's right. Well, Billy, you're just you just amaze me with what all you've been through, especially with this glaucoma, how you just handle it. I mean, you just take it all in stride. You told me, Oh, I still got one good eye.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:41

When the doctor told me that I had glaucoma and I lost uh I was legally blind in my right eye, that was the bad news. And I said, Well, what's the good news? So you still got one good eye. And I said, That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:54

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I just feel like you've got this joy that comes from the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:01

Well, thank you. And that's what that's exactly where it comes from. He has blessed me to come from the family that I can that I'm from, and that looking at whenever folks tell me that I'm patient, my grandfather was one of the most patient men you could ever, ever meet. And when you talk about not getting angry, upset or whatnot, uh he I remember one time my brother ran over his foot with a tractor and he didn't he never curse. I never heard him curse in the dentist light. The only thing he looked up and he said, uh, son, do you mind backing the tractor up?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:40

That's the way because you don't curse either. I've never heard you say a cuss word.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:46

And if you ever hear me curse, if you ever hear me curse, there's a real problem somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

All right, so before you go, I've got to know this because this is just so

The Chicken Joke And Final Goodbye

SPEAKER_03 1:20:00

funny to me. I remember we would discuss frequently your aversion for chicken. You can't stand you grew up on a farm, you grew up sharecropper, you cannot stand chicken. You said you even tell told me one time, look, look, I can tell I've drank or I've eaten something that had chicken broth in it because I got a feather coming out of my forehead with like this hair that you have.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:27

That's right. That's right. I'm not gonna pull it out or whatnot. I've eaten something that that chicken broth or too many eggs or something. Look, this feathers coming out of my head or whatnot. No, no, no. I do not eat chicken, have not eaten chickens chicken since I was five years old. Don't eat anything with feathers. No.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:47

Is that just from having to kill them?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:50

That's from having to kill them, and then that's from watching what they eat in the whole nine yards. People talk about people talk about pigs being nasty in the whole nine yards. Well, you have you haven't seen chickens. If you live with chickens or you live near chicken farm, then you know the chick chickens are some of the nasty creatures on this world and a certain oh no, they'll eat each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:22

I know I had one die and I went to get it, and the eyeballs were gone.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:31

So, no, I'm not eating, I'm not eating what we call the barn yard kit or the uh backyard buzzard. I'm not eating it. No. I grew up where I will cook it. Uh look, like I said this. I will kill it, I will clean it, I will cook it, but I won't eat it.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:53

You won't eat it, and no eggs either.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

No eggs either. It has to be in a cake or something, but I'm not just gonna eat an egg.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:02

Yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. Well, Bailey, this has been so fun, and uh I appreciate you coming on.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:11

Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it, and just like you said, it has just been a wonderful time just catching up and enjoying the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

Thanks again. Hey listener, before you go, would you please open your podcast?