John Howard McRee Jr.

I remember the evening vividly!

I was working in Reynolds Pharmacy in my hometown of Reynolds, Georgia on Wednesday, September 11, 1974! I had a terrible cold and I remember thinking that in less than a year I would graduate from the University of Georgia School of Pharmacy and I could start working for real. But this day I felt like warmed over you know what! I think that Leonard Whatley, the pharmacist-owner and friend, even told me that I needed to go home and get in the bed. My life-long friend, Johnny McRee, would stop by just about every day and we would make plans to go for a ride on his new motorcycle. He hurried in around closing time and was ready to make our plans. Not tonight ... I felt like ... well, you know what! He said that he had promised to take my friend and neighbor, Debbie Whatley, for a ride and this would be the perfect evening. Another hometown buddy of ours had just gotten married and was moved into his new home in the Crowell Community. Johnny would pick up Debbie and they would go to the McCrary's for supper. The plans were set! My plans were to go home, eat some of my Mama's cooking and go to bed as quickly as possible because I felt like ... you know what!

My family was in the funeral business, so it was not that much of an abnormal occurence for the phone to ring in the middle of the night. Tonight was no different. I heard the ringing and was glad that my father had answered it so I could go back to sleep. But tonight was different. I heard him say, "Is George with him"? This got my attention and I honed in on this conversation. As the sleep quickly left my brain, I determined that my older brother Mac was the person on the other end of the line. I heard that Johnny had been at David McCrary's with Debbie Whatley and had run out of cigarettes. Debbie suggested that she ride with him but Johnny refused her and said he could make a quicker trip by himself. He would ride to the store and would be back in a jiffy. He never returned and this was to be the last trip he would ever take. After a period of time and concern, phone calls were made and now my brother Mac was looking for Johnny between Reynolds and Crowell and was hoping for good news. Daddy hung up and I got up and went into my parents bedroom. Big Ed now remembered as he awakened that I did not go with Johnny this night and had decided to go to bed early due to my illness. He looked relieved. About this time Mac called again. He had found Johnny's body. Johnny had not been able to negotiate a curve in the road and had run through it, hit some soft gravel and lost control and sped through a little pine thicket. A small limb not bigger than an inch or so had broken his neck. The life of my boyhood friend was over.

I went with Daddy to the McRee's home out in the country. I had spent countless hours in this house as a boy, often spending weeks at the time there and then Johnny in turn would come to our home for a week or so. "Pill" McRee was like another mother to me and she and my father had grown up together so she made me feel like I was just one of her kids. When we walked up to the door of their darkened house in the middle of the night, Pill thought that Johnny was home and was wondering why he didn't just come in and go to bed as usual. She came to the door and saw Daddy and immediately new bad news was in store. Because he was the local funeral director, everyone knew that if Big Ed came to your door in the middle of the night, it was not to wish you a Merry Christmas. As almost in desparation, she asked if it were her mother, Nell. Daddy shook his head and then Pill collapsed. I then realized how upset my father was when I discovered that he had driven all the way out to the country without his glasses ... and he was blind as a bat! Big Ed loved Johnny like a son and he was visibly shaken and almost in a state of shock. I was thankful that we had not had a wreck driving out. Howard McRee, Johnny's dad, was a chain smoker of Home Run cigarettes and I remember his walking up with a Home Run hanging out of his mouth. It had to be around 2 am and I will never forget the pain I saw in Elizabeth "Pill" McRee's face that night. She and Johnny were not just mother and son, but best friends. Johnny was 23 years old! Pill had a wild and crazy sense of humor and is partly responsible for the development of my own love of laughing and pulling practical jokes. She was the master, but I never saw this in her again. She was never the same and carried this hurt with her to the grave in 1994!

We decided that early hour that a phone call to Johnny's sister, Linda, was not the thing to do, so Julian Whatley (Debbie's dad), Debbie and I drove to Linda's apartment in Atlanta to tell her the sad news. I remember that she lived somewhere near the Georgia Tech campus and we got there around 5 or 6 in the morning. She followed us home to Reynolds.

One thing about Johnny McRee was that he loved to drive anything fast! The boy loved speed! Even as a young boy, he would build ramps so that he could get his bike going as fast as possible to see how far he could jump. He was an early version of Evil Knevel! Learning to drive on dirt roads of his family's farm, he loved to make the car fish-tail. As he got older, he would often relate to me that he would drive his car over 100 miles per hour on the road to Butler. He actually dated the Sheriff's daughter in high school. I don't know if he really loved her or he just needed a way to keep from getting too many speeding tickets. This thrill-seeker side of him cost him his life. We determined that he had to be moving extremely fast coming into that curve that night.

Johnny was a natural athlete! He excelled in all sports: football, basketball, tennis, golf and track and field events. I think he came close to setting state records in several track events in high school. And the boy loved to hunt and fish. I remember so many dove shoots with Johnny, JimWhatley and I. Johnny and I were fishing in Rick's pond on the outskirts of Reynolds one summer afternoon and we caught so many fish that we ran out of crickets. Since we sold crickets and red wigglers at Goddard's store, I talked him into running back to town to replenish our bait supply. He agreed and in a few minutes, Big Ed and Johnny drove up with more bait. Daddy just had to see how many fish we had caught! One morning Johnny, Jim Whatley and I set out to the Reynolds Kiwanis Golf Club for a day of golf. Before the sun set (or as the sun set) we had played 72 holes. Johnny had the worst "hook" that I have ever seen on a golf course. There were times when I thought his golf ball would boomerang back to us.

In the summertime, I would go to the McRee's house for a couple of weeks and then he would come into town to our house for a couple of weeks. Those summer days in the country were spent playing around with the farm-hands and helping to pick some of the crops like watermelon and cantalope. For some reason, we loved helping to load watermelons onto a flatbed truck to take to market. We built forts, fished and went on dove shoots in the numerous fields and generally just had a ball. I thought Ms. Elizabeth, "Pill", was just another one of my mothers! It was great growing up in a community where I knew that all of my pals' moms loved me as much as their own children. She would cook bowls and bowls of fresh vegetables, corn on the cob, fried chicken, roast beef and then top everything off with Vidalia onions and home-grown tomatoes. Of course, corn bread was a staple! You must understand that this was a different time in America. Familes were friends for generations and their lives were interwoven in the fabric that was small-town life. The McRee's were an integral part of my upbringing. Of course, the biggest thrill of all was trying to do everything we could to drive Linda, the big sister, absolutely crazy! As I mentioned before, my father and "Pill" grew up together. Our grandparents grew up together and as a matter of fact, Miss Nell, Johnny's grandmother, lived across the street from my grandparents. Our great-grandparents were friends. Our friendship was just a natural progression of the way things were. We were the first generation that went off to college with the idea of moving away from home and going to where the action was!

You might be wondering why after all of these 32 years that I am writing about Johnny McRee today. Well, that night that he was killed, I went into the funeral home and told my father that I wanted to see Johnny. Big Ed let me go back. I took the watch off of his broken arm and got his wallet out of his pocket. I tried to give these to his mother, but she would not take them because it was too painful. She told me to keep them! Years later, I tried again to give them to her but she still did not want them so I have had this watch and wallet in my desk drawer all of these years. I open this drawer almost every day and I am reminded of my friend every time. Linda is married and lives in Carrollton, Georgia now with her family. Through a mutual friend, I tried several years ago to give the watch and wallet to her. She sent word back that I would have to deliver them in person. I think the time has come!

In this wallet I have Johnny's Georgia driver's license, his hunting and fishing license, his National Guard ID card, a typed list of invitees to a dove shoot, a prom picture of his sister Linda and her date, his warranty card for his Honda motorcycle, 2 crisp dollar bills which would have bought 4 packs of cigarettes in 1974 and various other reminders that my friend Johnny was involved up to his neck in the life that was so suddenly taken away that Wednesday night in the fall of 1974 on a country road just outside of Reynolds, Georgia.

I will never forget Johnny McRee! Never!

So tonight as you hurry to get the garbage can to the street for pick-up tomorrow or as you lay around on the sofa watching some mindless comedy on TV or as you try to get all the bills paid, I just wanted you to know that 32 years ago, a bunch of boys- becoming men lost a great friend in a freaking motorcycle wreck on a dirt road in rural Georgia!

I don't want the world to forget my friend, Johnny McRee!

And I haven't been on a motorcycle since that night!