George Thompson Biography

George

By David Thompson

Disclaimer: These are things that I remember or heard about many years ago that were never written down and I am well known for having a bad memory, so, there may be inaccuracies that will be corrected later. I haven’t embellished or diminished any of this.

George was a troubled soul!

George Warren Thompson was born Jan 11, 1950, to George Otis Thompson and Blanche Eliza Crow Thompson, the 4th of 5 boys. Sometime or other he got the nickname “Cotton”.

George was always different. When he was about 3 years old, he had a seizure of some type. I don’t know if he was ever tested or diagnosed. I remember one incident when we lived in the house that our dad built in Alexandria, AL (it’s gone now). We were on the front porch, and I remember seeing George fall onto the porch and seize. I don’t remember ever seeing an incident like that again, but my mother said that if he got hurt, he would sometimes hold his breath until he passed out.

Jimmy, my older brother, said that he was charged with watching out for George to make sure he didn’t get hurt. There was one incident when George got hurt and held his breath until he passed out. Jimmy said that he thought he had died and ran to a neighbor’s house for help. By the time he got back George had woke up.

Wayne said that when he passed out, it seemed like it would be up to 30 minutes before he came back to. Wayne also said that George was taken to several different Doctors to try to get a diagnosis, but the problem was never identified.

George was about 18 months younger than me and about 13 months older than Tim. Our 2 older brothers were 14 and 17 years older than George. The 3 of us, George, Tim and I, were always together when we were growing up. We were best friends, and we always played together, explored together, got into trouble together. We also fought each other.

When we were young, George, Tim Wayne and I went squirrel hunting and Wayne shot a squirrel across the creek from where we were. The squirrel fell out of the tree and George ran over to where the squirrel fell and Wayne yelled “don’t touch that squirrel!” about that time George held his hand up and the squirrel was hanging onto his finger. The squirrel wasn’t dead and bit him through the fleshy part of his index finger.

About fighting. Our dad wanted us to always “take our part” when we had problems with other kids. He never punished us in any way for fighting if we were attacked. He never had a problem with us fighting as long as we weren’t fighting each other. The times when we would fight and he would catch us, there were no questions. Period. He didn’t care who started it or who was winning, he would take his leather belt off and grab us one at a time and wear us out….. every time we got caught. By the way, he didn’t beat us, he whipped us. If we had a problem at school with teachers or administration our dad was there to defend us. There were incidents with Wayne when he was in school when dad went to the principal on his behalf. There was an incident with George in Hollandale, MS where he had an issue with one of the coaches and dad went to the school and met with the teacher and principal and solved the problem.

Our dad was a preacher and church pastor (not Methodist) and for some reason we moved around a lot. He never stayed at one church more than about 2 years and sometimes not that long. I went to 11 different schools, and I think that George went to 12 or 13, I’m not sure. I remember when I was in third grade and George would have been in the first, we attended 3 different schools that year. We started off in Sycamore, AL and then moved to Anniston for a short time and then finished the year in Thomaston, GA.

It seemed that every time we started in a new school that George would find the bully in the class, get into a fight with him and win. After that he didn’t have any more problems, and the bully became his best friend.

To me it seemed that George was a fighter. Other than the incident just mentioned, I never considered him a bully. It seemed to me that he fought a good bit as we grew up.

I suppose that after we started high school we drifted apart, and it could be that he went to places where he had no business. I remember that the one year I was in Hollandale, Tim told me that he wanted some sharp toed cowboy boots for Christmas. He said that he wanted them to wear on the weekends so that when he and George would get into fights, he could kick his opponent and hurt them worse. I know that that statement may be controversial in the family, but that is what I remember.

George was a good athlete in high school and played all the main sports, but he seemed to excel at football. Since I graduated a couple of years before him, I didn’t get to see him play during the last 2 years of high school. Our dad, being the hard-line, hellfire and brimstone preacher that he was, he believed that ball games were “worldly” and wouldn’t be caught dead a ballgame. But…..sometimes when George was playing at home on Friday night, he would drive around the field during the game and sit in the car and try to see George play. I was told recently that he even went to one game and did the invocation and then immediately left. He didn’t even stay for the start of the game. He never talked about it, and I don’t know how much he could see from the car. Dad was proud of George’s athletic ability. I don’t know if they ever talked about it or not.

Almost all of his high school was at Hollandale, MS, a very small farming town on the Mississippi River Delta. He played in some games against some players who later became well-known professional players and coaches. The only one I can think of was Steve Spurrier. I was told that while George was in high some of the best colleges offered him full ride scholarships to play football for them.

I don’t know what happened to him during the last couple of years in high school because I had graduated, started college, got married, was drafted into the Army and was in Germany during that time. For some reason he didn’t entertain any of the scholarship offers, but instead, joined the Marine Corps during the height of the Vietnam war. George was not a very good student, and I don’t know if he thought he couldn’t keep his grades up enough to keep the scholarships or not. I always considered joining the Marine Corps a dumb decision. In at least one of the letters, he wrote:

There were some things that happened in George’s life that I heard about, but I don’t know the details and unfortunately everybody that I could have asked about it have all died.

When we lived in Villa Rica in the ‘60’s, we had a friend that had an old car and one day George, Ralph Truitt, Luckie Miller and Tim decided to skip school and go to Florida. They got as far as Columbus, GA when they were stopped by the local sheriff for some reason. The Sheriff started questioning them, he learned what was going on and called our dad. Our dad called Luckie’s dad and the two of them went to Columbus to get the boys. Ralph lived with his brother because his parents had died at an early age. Ralph had broken some law, I’m not sure if it was speeding or no tag on that old car, but there was a fine involved and Ralph didn’t have money to pay the fine, so he gave the car to the Sheriff for the fine. So, there they were, on their way to Florida in a strange town. No money and no transportation and had to be rescued by their parents. I don’t know what the punishment was, but I’m sure there was something.

Then when George and Tim were in high school a similar incident took place. I had already gone from home, and I don’t remember how the story went, but there were 3 or 4 of them together on that adventure and this time they were going to California, I think to buy pot, but they got as far as Texas and wound up in jail again and had to be rescued. Some of these incidents could have influenced his decision to join the Marines instead of going to college.

There was a phrase that my dad used in reference to me and that was that “you have an inferiority complex.” I’m guessing now that we all did, and that may have been the reason George did some of the things he did. To be accepted. Anyway, George spent about 4 months in Vietnam and rotated back to the “world” in early June 1970 and was stationed in California.

I had just been discharged from the Army in January 1971 and George was home on leave and I learned that he and Debbie Smith were planning a garden wedding at her parent’s house for August 6th. They eloped to Alabama and were married July 16, 1971. Shane was born in 1972, and Ashley was born in 1974. He got into some trouble in California and was discharged from the Marines. I have ordered copies of his service records.

I don’t know much about George and Debbie’s relationship, I’m guessing it was not all that great, since they were divorced about 4 years later. After the divorce Debbie came back to Georgia and George stayed in California.

I know very little about his life there, but he told me that he worked as a carpenter building log cabins (I think) in the mountains of California.

When we first moved to Villa Rica, in 1963, George and Theresa “dated” for a while, and he always trusted Theresa, so, I guess when he would be lonely or blue or drunk, he would call Theresa (my wife) in the middle of the night and talk to her for long periods of time. Theresa said that he would be regretting some of the decisions that he had made and that he wished that he had what we had, “a normal” life.

Remember that this was right after the Vietnam and George was an ex-marine who had been in war that was horrible. I don’t know what he saw or did in Vietnam. We never got to spend very much time together to really get re-acquainted. I’m not trying to justify anything that he was or did. It was just a different time.

He was a hippie. He had long hair, down past his shoulders, and wore it in a ponytail. He had a biker-style wallet on a chain attached to his belt. He looked like a motorcycle gang member. At some point he owned an old motorcycle, maybe a Harley Davidson. It seems that I remember hearing him talking about it some, but I don’t think I ever saw it. As far as I know, he never belonged to a motorcycle gang.

He came back to Villa Rica sometime in the mid 1970’s and stayed for a while and stayed with us and also stayed with some of his friends from high school. While he was with us, he worked to fit in with our family. At the time it was our custom to take turns preparing dinner for the family. When it was his turn, he jumped right in and seemed to enjoy the family life and some “normalcy”. I don’t remember any of the meals he prepared, but we ate what he prepared and didn’t get sick or die.

Another thing that happened was that during that time he owned an old red convertible Buick. Our daughter, Melissa, was a pre-teen, 11 or 12 years old, and sometimes George was asked to either take her to school or pick her up. Here is this hippie with a long ponytail and a big mustache in an old red convertible to pick her up in front of the school where all her friends were. We learned later that she was extremely embarrassed. I guess to a 12-year-old, it was horrible.

I don’t know how long he was in VR, but I know it wasn’t but a few months and then I think he was off to Florida.

The story I got about his death in Florida varies from some others, but the story I know was…. He was living in Orlando, with a girl, I don’t know anything about her, and had bought an old, I think, 1951 Plymouth that he was restoring. He needed some clutch parts and found them in Orlando, George paid the guy up front and didn’t immediately get them. Some time passed, maybe several months, so George decided to go and get the parts or his money back. He went to the guy’s house one morning, but the guy wasn’t there. George decided to wait for him at a bar and started drinking. Later that day he went to the house again and the guy still wasn’t there. He went back to the bar for a while and went back to the house again. The guy still wasn’t there so George decided to cut the tires on the vehicles that were in the yard and then went back to the bar. Around 1 am he went back to the house and beat on the door. When the guy came to the door, he shot George. I don’t know how many times. Anyway 911 was called and George was taken to the hospital where he died. There was an investigation, and it was ruled justifiable homicide.

He is buried in the cemetery at the Hall’s Chapel Congregational Holiness Church in Weaver AL.