HARRIS, JAMES H.

I Graduated Fifty-five Years Later

By James H. Corky Harris

I was born at Commerce, Texas, on August 2, 1928. My parents, Loarn Herbert and Diamond Corene Wilkins Harris, named me James Herbert Harris, but one of my uncles had been reading Gasoline Alley in the newspaper comics and decided that I should be called Corky. I was less than an hour old when he gave me that name, and I've been known as Corky every since.

We moved to the Oak Cliff area of Dallas sometime around 1930, and I have lived in Oak Cliff for over seventy years now. I grew up during the Depression era when times were hard. We were very poor, but didn't realize it since everyone else around us was just as poor.

My dad was a second-generation barber. His shop was located at the end of the old Sunset streetcar line on Brooklyn and Pierce Street. We moved to the Beverly Hills section when I was about eleven. I had attended Lida Hooe Elementary and then graduated from nearby Greiner Jr. High. I attended Crozier Tech the next year so that I could take the shop class. Then I enrolled in Sunset High until I was old enough for the military. Toward the end of World War II I dropped out of school and enlisted in the Navy, but wasn't accepted in the Naval reserve and found that eating bananas would cause weight gain. On February 24, 1946, I finally weighed 102 pounds and was inducted into the Navy.

We were shipped to San Diego, California for boot camp and then took a troop train to Jacksonville, Florida, where I attended aviation prep school and graduated number one in the class. Then I attended aviation electronics school before being shipped to a base near Memphis, Tennessee, for aviation radio school. I did well in all areas except Morse Code. I could never send more than sixteen words per minute, so they shipped me to Atlantic City Naval Air Station in New Jersey, where I became an aviation electrician. We serviced all navy aircraft, even those aboard aircraft carriers.

I was a young man who wanted to be of service to my country and I wanted to see the world, but never once got out of the States. I met and married Joan Louise Walsh while stationed at Atlantic City. The navy offered early discharge, so I accepted and was discharged at Philadelphia on April 10, 1950. Lucky me: all discharges were frozen one week later as a result of the Korean War.

We moved to Oak Cliff and I began working for Braniff Airlines and later worked for Chance Vought. We experienced numerous lay-offs over the next several years, including the one just before Christmas in 1958. About five weeks later, I opened Corky's Lawn Mower Repair near Hampton and Clarendon street. This area of Oak Cliff was known as Jim Town back then. I operated the lawn mower and repair shop for the next forty-two years. (Never did get laid off, either.)

We've been married fifty-two years now and have three children. Phillip is a South Grand Prairie teacher and is married to Doris. They have two children. Katherine Ann is married to Sam Abel, and they have three children. Debra Lynn is married to Johnny Hill and they have four children. I am retired, but have been an active member of the Oak Cliff Lions Club for the last twenty-six years.