Aug. 11, 2008

Billy Godfrey still going strong at 90

BY ROY MITCHELL

CENTRE — “We were sitting ducks,” recalls Billy Godfrey.

Godfrey and 365 other United States Marines sat helplessly in Buckner Bay, near Okinawa, Japan. All the other ships and carriers in Godfrey's fleet disappeared over the horizon in the war-weary summer of 1945, yet the USS Cape Glouster remained. Its anchor wouldn't budge from the ocean floor.

Godfrey, venerable veteran, former educator, basketball coach, and choir director, recalls that soldiers on board couldn't afford to be afraid.

“You'd go nutty if you worried about it,” he says.

And there was plenty to worry about.

The USS Pennsylvania had been ordered to help protect the stuck vessel, but a Japanese kamikaze plane struck the battleship as it floated next to Godfrey's immobile carrier. The next day, another Japanese kamikaze took aim.

“I don't know why he didn't hit us,” Godfrey says. “He hit the small transport ship sitting right next to us.”

World War II ended with the Cape Glouster's anchor still sitting on the bottom. After escaping the war in the Pacific with his life, Billy Godfrey -- a music-loving, 135-pound kid with a high-pitched voice -- received two Battle Stars and a Presidential Citation.

Aside from his military service, Godfrey has barely lived farther than a dog's bark away from the Alexis community in eastern Cherokee County. He was born 90 years ago last Monday.

In 1918, John F. Kennedy was a year old. Women could not vote for president, and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series behind a promising young slugger named Babe Ruth. Nine decades later, Godfrey proudly retains a lifetime of anecdotes and experiences.

Attending the old Alexis schoolhouse, the future educator wasn't the most disciplined of students. He actually failed the 7th grade.

“They got a principal in there. He and I just didn't gee-haw,” he recalls.

Godfrey made a second attempt at passing the 7th grade at Cedar Bluff. Yet the makeshift bus for transporting country kids across the Coosa River proved quite unreliable.

“It had wooden benches, and it broke down half the time,” he says. “We called it the 'Chicken Coop'.”

The old bus crossed the Coosa on a ferry twice a day. According to Godfrey, the bus would sometimes arrive at the ferry only to find the operator intoxicated. Students actually guided the ferry across the Coosa many a morning.

“On the ferry is where all the fights and trouble started,” recalls Godfrey. “They finally made us go the long way to school.”

After blocking and tackling for three successful Cedar Bluff football teams, Godfrey graduated in 1939.

“At that time, Hitler was raging in Europe,” he says. “We knew there would probably be a war.”

Godfrey served in the U.S. Marine Corps beginning in 1944, enduring 10 weeks at Parris Island, S.C., the famed boot camp.

“I can't explain how tough Paris Island was,” he says. “They give you about three times more calisthenics than you could take, and got you up at three in the morning. I didn't even have time to speak to the boys that came with me. About the third day, they finally gave us a 10-minute break, and could I talk to them.”

By the next year, Godfrey was in Buckner Bay, dodging kamikaze attacks. After the war, he served out his military time, then returned home and resumed dating a childhood acquaintance. He and Cora Belle Grimes were married on Valentine's Day in 1947.

After a stint teaching veterans, Godfrey built an eclectic legacy of enriching the arts of both music and basketball to the children of Alexis.

Every morning, Godfrey had the entire 7th and 9th grades to himself while the other teacher was on break. Godfrey often led the students in song.

“Those big old country boys loved it,” he says. “We would go around to churches and sing. They always wanted a song with a lot of bass in it.”

Ebenezer United Methodist Church, a mile down the road from the school house, didn't have a choir director at the time.

“I started going to Ebenezer and leading the singing. I led singing there for 60-odd years,” he said.

During the 1940s, Alexis Junior High hadn't fielded a basketball team, so when he began his teaching career Godfrey revived it with some outdoor ingenuity.

“We went down in the woods and cut sweet gum poles,” he says. “Arthur Wilson gave us some old weather boarding for backstops, and some boys already had some rims.”

Though his team struggled at first, Godfrey said it wasn't long before other coaches began to dread games against his Yellow Jackets.

After eight years at Alexis and two in Centre, Godfrey took his whistle to Hardin Junior High on Highway 411 east of Centre. At Hardin, basketball wasn't a high priority for many students. In his first game there, two of his better players skipped the contest to go coon hunting. But by the time he left Hardin six years later to take the principal's job at Alexis, Godfrey had captured both B team and Pee-Wee championships.

Back at Alexis, Godfrey continued to coach and his basketball teams went undefeated for the next two years. He would lead Alexis to various junior high championships for several decades. After Alexis School closed, Godfrey briefly coached the junior high boys and girls teams at Cedar Bluff, and was even offered the high school varsity job at age 61. But he turned down the job and retired soon after.

Godfrey led an antsy retirement. After over 30 years in teaching, he still had an itch for education. In 1984 he ran for a seat on the county school board. He won, and served two six-year terms, but declining to run for a third term at age 78.

Looking back now, though, Godfrey, admits to second thoughts.

“I would have run for a third term if I'd have known I was going to live this long!”