Leander Hall and Edward Hall

[00:08] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: My name is Edward Austin Hall. My age is 59. Today's date is March 25, 2021 and I am speaking with my brother, Buster Hall.

[00:27] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: My name is Leander a. Buster Hall III. My age is 72 years old. Today's date is March 26th and I am speaking with my brother, Edward Austin Hall.

[00:47] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Buster, let's talk about St. Peter Claver. You were Peter Claver, right?

[00:52] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, I was.

[00:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: How many years?

[00:56] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Through the eighth grade.

[00:58] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay, so all eight years. Who was the, who was the rector there then? The priest?

[01:04] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Several.

[01:06] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Which ones do you remember?

[01:08] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Father Who? Father Ointment? That's the only one that I remember. He was a fisherman. That's the only reason I remember him. He's come in with. He had a big boat. He used to come in with these huge kingfishers.

[01:22] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And do what with them?

[01:24] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I don't know. I just got to see the kingfish. That was exciting to me.

[01:28] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay, Is that. You think that's why you started became a fisherman?

[01:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, no, I was, I was hooked from when I started walking when I used to go out with. With Howard at Ms. Yvonne's house.

[01:40] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, okay. Was there water there?

[01:43] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Three Mile Creek.

[01:45] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You fished in Three Mile Creek?

[01:47] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Man, we did everything.

[01:48] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You ate what came out of Three Mile Creek?

[01:51] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Absolutely. Absolutely not. We ate nothing. We ate. We. We did eat the rabbits we used to catch. Rabbits, huh?

[02:00] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: How'd you catch rabbits?

[02:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: With a box and a string. Like old fashioned.

[02:05] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Old fashioned, Bugs Bunny style. That worked, huh?

[02:09] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And, and then we got old enough to get B guns.

[02:13] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You started shooting them?

[02:14] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, yeah.

[02:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You still hunt?

[02:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, of course, of course. And fish.

[02:22] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I. I know you still have the boat.

[02:24] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes.

[02:25] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay, so who took you hunting the first time?

[02:30] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: How?

[02:31] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. And I just. Right when I know my first real.

[02:38] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Hunting hunting trip was with my ex wife's father. Father. Gwen.

[02:43] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Gwen. Right. Mr. Anderson.

[02:45] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Right, Mr. Anderson. And as we were pulling up to the hunting camp that he belonged to, this eight point buck ran across the road and jumped the fence right in front of us. I said, oh man, this is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. I see another buck for five years.

[03:04] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh wow.

[03:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I got stories about honey, man.

[03:08] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I bet you do.

[03:09] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah.

[03:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So you had kind of a tense relationship with people of the cloth when you were at St. Peter Claver, as.

[03:21] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: The stories go, with the nuns. Yes.

[03:25] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[03:25] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: This one.

[03:27] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Which one?

[03:29] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Sister Mary, Male. Yeah, that was the one who, who called me an an epithet. And.

[03:40] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And you in return did what?

[03:42] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And slapped me in. I stuck it with a pencil.

[03:44] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You stuck with A pencil?

[03:47] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Wait, not much.

[03:49] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Not much.

[03:50] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah.

[03:50] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You know, I thought you. I thought you snatched the habit off one of the nuns.

[03:54] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, no, no, that's not. I mean, it was just like she slapped me and called me a. And not realizing I had a pencil in my hand when it happened, I just kind of joked at it. Didn't penetrate the skin or anything. The little white thing that she wore down her chest.

[04:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Good effort. So, yeah, I think this, you know, this. We have sort of parallel relationships to the members of Catholic holy orders. What did you. What? So apart from, like, the impression he made as a fisherman. Right. Did you have any other relationship with Father?

[04:46] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No.

[04:47] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oink.

[04:48] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Ner like o, n, T, N, E, r.

[04:54] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Got it.

[04:56] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, I had no other problems with priests. None.

[04:59] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[05:00] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Except when.

[05:03] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Here we go.

[05:04] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Now this. This was nothing to do with the priest. This was to do with some badass altar boys. We were in there throwing the big host, like, frisbees.

[05:16] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, yeah.

[05:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And drinking the wine.

[05:18] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So you get caught?

[05:20] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, no, of course not.

[05:22] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Because you. You were an altar boy.

[05:24] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes.

[05:25] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah. So you, Joe, David, and I think Mike were all altar boys. Yeah, I never did the altar boy thing. Right. Like, I just. Yeah, it. It. It held no appeal for me, I gotta say. What. What was that? Like, what. Where'd you. Where'd your robes live? Did your robes live at the church or did you bring them home?

[05:49] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, no, no, they stayed at the church. My biggest memory was going down to Martin de Porous hospital and being an altar boy for the bishop. Which one? Yeah, Bishop Tool. He would come to the hospital once a month, and every now and then I would get to be the altar boy for that. But I just remember the food that they had at the hospital. I would get to eat free breakfast. It was just something different.

[06:26] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What was tooling like racist shocker.

[06:33] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, typical Alabama.

[06:36] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Typical Alabama. Exactly right. You know, for me, that was Oliver Adams at Saint Matthews, who was just a monstrous fellow. He picked me up by my afro, so said, get this cut.

[06:52] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Well, that's what. That. That was one of the problems that I had with Mir Mel. She had pulled a plug out of Cheryl Hall's hair. Little Lorenzo's sister. These colors. Uncle Lorenzo. Uncle Lorenzo, Uncle Julian and Craig's mother were brothers and sisters.

[07:14] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[07:16] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Uncle Lorenzo's daughter was Cheryl hall, and she had this pretty blonde hair and. Blonde, yes, real fine. And Mary Mel grabbed her and pulled a plug out of her hair. So I already had.

[07:33] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I. I totally get that.

[07:35] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And then when she slapped me in and called me What? She called me bro. I. I wouldn't.

[07:40] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That was it.

[07:41] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: That. That's when I had to leave the diocese. I wasn't allowed in the diocese no more. So that's when I started public school. I went to south side, which was a brand new. Brand new school. That was in 1963. And the reason I remember that, because I was sitting in class in 1963 when they brought the TV in. President Kennedy had been killed, so that's how I remember Southside.

[08:10] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, wow. Talk about that for a minute.

[08:13] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: What? Oh. Everybody in the school was crying, man. It was terrible, man.

[08:19] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What time of day do you remember?

[08:21] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It was a Tuesday, I think he got killed about 11, 12 o'clock noon, something like that. And it was terrible the rest of the day.

[08:29] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: They brought them y'all. They kept y'all at school.

[08:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No. Yeah, they kept us in school. But. But, I mean, I don't know why they should have let everybody go.

[08:37] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: They should have sent everybody home. But I think that wisdom came later. Let's back up to St. Martin de Porus for a minute. Were you also. This was the segregated Catholic.

[08:53] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Catholic black hospital down on the corner of Virginia street and Washington Avenue.

[08:59] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. Where. So you were born. Were you.

[09:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Were you born in the old Martin, the poorest hospital.

[09:04] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. And I think. I don't know if I was born in the new.

[09:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: They tore that one down and they built the brick one.

[09:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay, got it. Okay. Yes.

[09:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It was the old two story wooden building, but I used to work. I was an altar boy at the. At the.

[09:18] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You said. Huh. And when would that be? When. When would you go? When would you go? Like, be with Tulin doing. Doing his duties. What day? Sundays?

[09:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, no, this was weekly mass.

[09:35] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's what I'm saying.

[09:36] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah. Daily mass. This is Monday through Friday.

[09:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, you mean daily.

[09:41] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: He would go there maybe once a month, and then. I think I only had him twice, but I had a regular priest every other week. Every other. I didn't have to go every week. I would go maybe once a month down there, and then a couple of the times during the time that I was an altar boy, during probably two or three years I was an altar boy. I got Bishop Tulip.

[10:04] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So here's a question. So you essentially get. You stat. You stab the nun with a pencil and.

[10:10] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Stab. I jabbed that. I didn't stab her. You stabbing means you break somebody's skin. I didn't. I didn't.

[10:16] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You. You poked her with a pencil.

[10:18] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Correct.

[10:19] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And were, quote, banished from the diocese.

[10:24] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Somewhat.

[10:25] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Somewhat.

[10:26] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Do it formally. I wasn't going back to another Catholic school.

[10:30] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: But did you still go to Mass?

[10:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Of course.

[10:33] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Of course. See you. You know, for me, I. Busted. This is. I. This is like the galactic difference between us. Mass was always the most tedious hour of the week for me. Was it Mass exciting for you?

[10:52] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Not really. It was just something that I had to do, being a Catholic, you know, and I did.

[10:57] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right, right, right, right. But now do you still go to the Catholic Church?

[11:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, I do.

[11:02] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, okay. That's. I gotta say, this is a bit of a shock to me for some reason.

[11:07] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I've been a Methodist in the interim period when I married, when she was a Methodist, so I started going to church with her, right? But I came back to the Catholic Church because Jeanette was Catholic.

[11:20] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So what Paris do y'all go to now?

[11:23] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: We go to San Andrew the Apostle.

[11:25] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay, and so what's the hang up.

[11:30] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: On this religious stuff?

[11:32] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Look, listen, buster, it, it. It's taken me 50 plus years to figure out, right, that you can take the boy out of the church, but you can't take the church out of the boy.

[11:47] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Okay?

[11:47] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I mean, the Catholic Church made me what I am. It gave me the education that I received. It made me a writer. It made me a writer because I was so bored during mass that I was always. I was there only physically. My mind was always in fantastical worlds with monsters and spies and superheroes.

[12:07] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It wasn't because of the church. Your mind was just there because that's how you were wired.

[12:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's exactly right. That's how I was wired. I am not. I do not have an entheogenic mind. Right. I don't. My. My default is not to go to, right. A belief in a higher being. In my world, I'm the higher being.

[12:29] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I hear you.

[12:30] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So. Right. And. And then, you know, the beginning of the end of it was the other way around. Right? They got mad. The church got mad at you. The diocese got mad at you. I got mad at the diocese, right? When Oliver Adams picked me up by my hair. That was the beginning of the end, not only of Catholicism, but of organized religion for me. So, you know, you, you come at me with all this stuff about being a non believer. I have excellent reason to be a non believer because at every turn, the church has betrayed me. At every turn, with the one exception. I was always around, like during high school, I was always around pedophile priests. They never laid a finger on me. Mama, of course, would have killed them all. But, you know, I was friendly with them for years. Actually for decades in one case. And then I found out what they really were. So. Right. You have to understand, this was a betrayal that unfolded over the course of 30 years. So I.

[13:38] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: To each his own, you know.

[13:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right.

[13:40] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Hey, that.

[13:41] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: But that it's important that you to me that you understand this. Right. That.

[13:45] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: That I got you on. If that's right.

[13:48] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: No, no. Right. And I get that. It still has.

[13:51] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I have mine. And. And I'm sticking with them.

[13:54] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And they. Right. And I.

[13:57] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: To the grave, baby.

[13:58] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Hey, man. So. So now. So you started high school at Southside?

[14:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I started junior high. That was a junior. I was junior high.

[14:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And then you went to Williamson.

[14:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And I went to Williamson.

[14:14] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. Which is another public school.

[14:16] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And that was what probably the most traumatic part of my whole life was going to Williamson.

[14:21] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Really? Why?

[14:22] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, because that was a turf battle between down the Bay people and the people from Maysfield.

[14:31] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You know, I was gonna say Maysville.

[14:33] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: They made. They made. They made several of my classmates drop out and end up going over the Central. I saw people pistol whipped in the projects at Maysville. Oh yeah, it was bad, man. We went to a party. I Never forget George McKinney. We went to a party, me and Craig and George McKinney and Eddie Rembert. And we got into a humbug with some of the guys from Maysville. And George McKinney had about a 18 inch meat cleaver that he pulled from under the seat of his car. Said, let's go get him. I said, no, let's just go get the hell out of here. I'm talking about a huge meat cleaver, 18 inches long, bro.

[15:24] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I. So I guess the blade on it.

[15:26] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Probably was 12 inches. Biggest me clear. I said, what you cut with that? But we. Man. I used to have to catch the train. Home.

[15:38] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Train. You mean the streetcar?

[15:40] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, the freight train.

[15:42] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What are you talking about?

[15:45] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: At 3 o'clock we had to walk past the projects to get to the bus stop which was going up towards. Up towards Houston Street.

[15:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. What? What?

[15:55] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: That? What? That? What? That wasn't happening.

[15:57] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Back up a second. Is this the train line that crosses Broad Street?

[16:02] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: This is the same. Same one.

[16:04] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's what I thought. And which direction would the train. Because I can't. I can't.

[16:08] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: The train, the 3 o'clock train every day would be going towards the river, down towards the dry docks, going to the docks. And we couldn't. And it would be after us. So. And. And we couldn't get across the track. So we just jumped up on the train.

[16:21] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Jump up on the train and ride.

[16:23] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: The train on down the broad street.

[16:27] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I had no idea you felt like terrible. How old were you then? What year is this?

[16:34] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: That was my sophomore year. After my sophomore year, all of the bad guys that, that were giving us all the problems, they were all seniors, they graduated and we didn't have any problems. After our junior senior year, we never had that problem again. That's when we had first started because Southside, that was we, that was our first year from Southside. Everybody used to go to Emerson and Emerson stopped at the eighth grade.

[16:57] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[16:58] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And you know something I just found out.

[17:00] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What?

[17:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Our great grandfather, George hall was the first principal of Williams.

[17:06] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh my God.

[17:08] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It's in Wikipedia.

[17:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Huh?

[17:11] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: So go Google up. I mean Wikipedia. Williamson High School.

[17:18] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh yeah.

[17:19] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: First principal.

[17:20] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's, that's great. So how old is Williamson? George hall was enslaved. Right.

[17:29] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It was not called Williamson then.

[17:31] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[17:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It was called something else. I don't even know what the name was, but it was. It Basically it was the school that turned into the elementary school. Williamson didn't come become a senior, a senior high school until the early late 50s, I believe.

[17:48] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, that you and it was segregated.

[17:53] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, it was black school. It was right in the middle of all the projects. Eddie.

[17:59] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So it was always a black school?

[18:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes.

[18:03] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Have to be situated where it was.

[18:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It sat right in the middle of the project. The project.

[18:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. I see. Yep, yep. That, that all. You know, of course, if George hall was. Was over, was its first principal. Of course there were no white people there. It's like, you know, it took me the longest time to realize why. Who was, who was the other plain clothesman who would have been a. I guess a deputy sheriff when daddy was a policeman. Do you know who I'm talking about? He would swap books with Daddy.

[18:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No.

[18:34] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So I, it never occurred to me that Daddy had like zero power over white juveniles. Daddy was there to handle black kids.

[18:44] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Black. He was a black juvenile.

[18:46] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. And so I, you know it. I. An artist friend of mine here, Lonnie Holly, he has a terrible story about wanding up at Mount Megs where, as you will recall, Daddy often was transporting prisoners, I. E. Juveniles.

[19:11] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Except the ones he would bring to the house for Christmas. And I was.

[19:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Well, that, you know that. I, I don't remember that.

[19:18] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I, I. Well, you were, you weren't even around then.

[19:21] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah, he must have stopped. He must have stopped doing that.

[19:23] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: He was just being a kind hearted person. And I didn't like it. I said, I won't be sharing my Christmas with a criminal. Why? Why you got to bring him here?

[19:32] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah, buster, that's a real Christian attitude you got there.

[19:35] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I have no idea.

[19:36] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Let it go.

[19:37] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I was in the B back then, so.

[19:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And see, for me, like, this is the other part for me where. Right. As much as I abhor the church, it's not even a rejection. It's an abhorrence of the church. Like, I. I feel in opposition to everything about the Catholic Church today. And that said, I have a deeply ingrained sense of Catholic guilt. So Daddy was taking kids to Mount Megs, come to find. Do you know the scandal about Mount Megs? Do you know why it closed?

[20:10] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No.

[20:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: They were torturing kids to death.

[20:15] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I hear you. No, I. I didn't know anything about that.

[20:18] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. I didn't know about it either. And then it turns out this friend of mine, Lonnie Holly, they, like, whipped him. They tied him to a post outdoors, whipped him and left him last to this post for days. And, like, 24 hours a day, for days. Days. So, you know, it's like I. When I. When I realized that I had heard that story before because I'd seen the documentary. A friend of mine made a documentary about Lonnie Holly, and I'd seen it already, but it just didn't penetrate my brain, right, to realize that this was hap. Because they. They talked about it more when they had to premiere the movie. They talked about Mountain Megs and the whole scandal around it and how, you know, they found bodies buried on the grounds there of kids who were murdered by the people who were running the facility. And, you know, to think that Daddy was taking people there, that's just. That was. That was. I. I had hysterics, and I had to run out of the theater and hid in the men's room and was basically like, a mess. So, you know, it's.

[21:36] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I never heard that story.

[21:37] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. But, you know, you got to now. Did Daddy tell war stories when you were growing up?

[21:44] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Not really. He just told me about the time that he got shot in the butt.

[21:48] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, right. When he was flying. Right. Flying.

[21:51] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Flying the plane. And the lady came outside. The. This Filipino lady.

[21:55] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Huh. And what happened?

[21:57] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And. And she shot him, Adam, with a shotgun, and one of the pellets hit him in the behind. Not bad.

[22:02] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[22:03] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: But, you know, his plane. The plane that he. He flew was made out of canvas and wounded.

[22:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right.

[22:09] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: With a motor.

[22:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[22:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Right.

[22:12] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Like a little. Was it a little biplane? Right.

[22:15] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, it wasn't. I don't think it was a biplane.

[22:17] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, it would have been a monoplane.

[22:21] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It wasn't much of a plane. He could. He. He had. One story he did tell me was that he had this officer that he. It's. It sat two people. So he had a guy in a compartment behind him, and he was a big, big guy, and he tried to take off, and the guy weighed so much and the plane was so weak that he couldn't take off with him.

[22:42] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. You told me that that's a. And that you're right. That's consistent with, I think, what we know about Daddy now, which I. You know that he was a liaison officer. In addition to being a Tuskegee airman, he was a.

[23:00] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: The pilot for the artillery. He went to. For.

[23:05] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Well, he was that.

[23:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oklahoma.

[23:07] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: No, no, he was that too. But after daddy completed training as a Tuskegee airman, he did a second round of training in West Virginia to become a liaison officer. And basically, just like you said, like, just like you just said, he was flying officers as brass from island to island in the Pacific.

[23:26] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Right.

[23:27] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: There were two guys. Do you remember the name of daddy's tent mate during the war?

[23:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: All our. All I remember is the Lieutenant Hambone story.

[23:37] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, tell a lieutenant. I don't know the story because I know his nickname was Hambone.

[23:42] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, He. He was coming in off. Off a ship. I don't know where it was. And somebody from Mobile knew him and they had. God damn if it ain't Lieutenant Hambone. Somebody who had grown. I never knew his name was Ham. On.

[24:03] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: This was. This was in the Pacific.

[24:05] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I. I don't know why it might have been in California. I'm not sure where it happened. He just told me. He told me that story.

[24:10] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Wait, when was Daddy in California?

[24:13] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I'm talking when he came back. They shipped out of California.

[24:16] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. Okay.

[24:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: If they were in the Philippines, they wouldn't go all around, all the way around. Tip of South America to get there. They were gonna. They were gonna leave out of California to get to the Philippines.

[24:26] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[24:27] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Both of them are Pacific Ocean.

[24:31] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And what was I gonna. I was gonna ask you something else about him. His tent mate is. Oh, remember Uncle Pete? No, you leans long time nanny. Lean's long time boyfriend.

[24:52] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Not really.

[24:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Glasses, mustache.

[24:55] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I probably remember if I saw him, but I just, you know, because Nan was like. That was like my ace man.

[25:02] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Exactly.

[25:03] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I spent a lot of time with her.

[25:05] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: No, no, that's.

[25:07] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Basically, she's one who. Who spurred my interest in cooking.

[25:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right.

[25:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Because I Used to go and help her up at Pope's lunch.

[25:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So this is. This is Yelene Scott. She's one of the singing Scott sisters.

[25:20] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Right.

[25:22] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And the. I love that you. You know the story about how they were all named, right?

[25:29] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, So I. I was with. In fact, I was with Brenda last Saturday.

[25:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Doing what?

[25:41] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Faye's daughter died.

[25:42] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, you went to the funeral?

[25:43] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes. And, yeah, all of. All our relatives were there. Monica went over.

[25:49] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Such a sad thing.

[25:51] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, man, she was so.

[25:52] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah, yeah, it was friendly.

[25:54] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: She used to. She used to come over here. She went to Xavier, so she used to come over here and we were feeding.

[25:59] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You talk about the daughter, Faze daughter.

[26:01] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, Kelly. Kelly. Kelly Malone. Right.

[26:05] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah. Terrible.

[26:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You know, her aunt was Vivian Malone, who integrated the University of Alabama.

[26:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right. Okay. I. You know, I never knew that. So you lean. So you don't know. Yaleen's mama's name was Alice. Did you know that?

[26:25] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, I knew Ms. Alice.

[26:26] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay. So do you not. So the. The secret. The secret to. To them was the mother was Alice. A, right. Then Yelene Inez Odette A, E, I, O, U.

[26:43] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Okay. That was them.

[26:46] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yep. So.

[26:48] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yep. I remember I used to go up there, man, they had a back porch that had this lattice work on it.

[26:54] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Is this a post Jeanette or a house?

[26:56] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, this. This was the house. The house was on Dearman street and the Luncheonette was on Selma Street.

[27:02] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's right. They were around the corner from each other.

[27:03] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Right, right. No, it was. It was same yard. Just one of them faced Dearman street with a big.

[27:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That's what I'm saying.

[27:10] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: They weren't allowed on the corner. And then the Luncheonette was right across the street from the Harlem Theater.

[27:16] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Right?

[27:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And. Oh, man, I got stories about the Harlem theater I never will forget. We went to see the zombie movie, and they had a house that sat way back in the yard right across the street. They had this huge oleander plant maybe 30ft across. And as we were coming out of the theater, man, this drunk guy came stumbling out of the tree. I think I got home in two seconds.

[27:46] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Is this the. Is this bell? The Bel Lugosi zombie movie?

[27:49] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, no, no. This was some BB movie. Zombies. Oh, my God. I love the Zombies. That was the name of it.

[27:57] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[27:57] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I love the Zombies. Look. Look like I made it.

[28:01] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah, there was a lot of. Around then. What.

[28:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: But you gotta understand, huh.

[28:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Did you have a favorite movie growing up, Buster?

[28:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No, not really.

[28:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And I know you've never been much of a reader, so I know you didn't have a favorite book.

[28:20] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Not really.

[28:21] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah. And. And I know. What kind of relationship did you have with daddy?

[28:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Button heads all the time.

[28:34] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah. Yeah.

[28:37] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: He was his way, and I had a strong will, and they didn't go together, so we always were at each other.

[28:46] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Never. Never got physical, though.

[28:50] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: One time.

[28:52] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Really?

[28:53] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah.

[28:54] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: One time it got physical with you.

[28:57] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It didn't really get physical physical. It got scary physical, but it. Nothing happened, so.

[29:04] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, Now. Which is different, actually. I don't know if you remember. The first actual fist fight I ever had was with you. You remember that?

[29:13] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You lost.

[29:14] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: No, actually, you lost. Turns out I have a. I have a pretty good right hook, man.

[29:21] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You ain't never punched me, man.

[29:23] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Dude, I. I clocked you in the jaw, and you laid off. You were like, nope, I'm done. So don't try to. Don't try to.

[29:33] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Retro thinking.

[29:34] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: No, no. You. You came after me when you found out I had a little white girlfriend, Randall Ingate. And started trying to rough me up, and I. I was like, oh, and. And swung and caught you right in the side of the jaw. Right?

[29:49] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I definitely don't remember that.

[29:50] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I remember it like it was yesterday.

[29:52] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: So I hear you.

[29:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And you absolutely lost that.

[29:55] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You sound like Nick. Nick told me I grabbed him one time, and I said, man, I never grabbed you. I don't want to hear that. Except one time. I said, I do remember one time. I did.

[30:09] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So you always. Seems like all of y'all were always having, like, sharp things penetrate your bodies. Did. Didn't you fall through a window one time?

[30:21] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Front window at 804.

[30:23] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Huh? Tell that story.

[30:26] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: We were playing hide and seek, and Joanne Hall LeBlanc, she was mad at me, so she knew I was hiding behind the sofa, so she pushed the sofa, and I went through one of those big, tall windows, and a piece of glass. The window broke, and a big sliver of glass maybe a foot long broke off in the shed. Stuck me in my behind. I had to go get a tetanus shot. It took five people to hold me down and give me a shot because I hated needles.

[31:00] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So is that still true?

[31:03] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Do what? Oh, no, no.

[31:05] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[31:05] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Diabetic, man. I take a shot every day.

[31:07] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: All right, good point. Did you have to. Did you have to fetch daddy's insulin when you were growing up? When did he. When did he become diabetic?

[31:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I don't. I don't remember.

[31:19] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Okay.

[31:19] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I remember him shooting himself in the stomach when I was a kid.

[31:22] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yep, exactly. And was he. Did he basically kind of live in the bed when you were growing up?

[31:31] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Absolutely.

[31:32] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, my Lord.

[31:33] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Through breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[31:35] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Breakfast, lunch and dinner. On that aluminum tray.

[31:37] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yep.

[31:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And used to mix his grits and scrambled eggs together, which I always thought was the most disgusting thing imaginable.

[31:44] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And I do the same thing.

[31:46] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Bad visual.

[31:49] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You ought to see eggs and. And corned beef hash. I think that's bad.

[31:57] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You know, I could deal with eggs and corned beef hash, but just grits and eggs. Just. It's. It's not a good coat. Man.

[32:05] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I remember. I remember when Nick and Derek. To this day, Nick doesn't eat grits and eggs because of me. I would cook them and I would mix them up like that.

[32:14] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, no, the thing is, right, you.

[32:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Know, wait a minute, wait a minute. Derek would take two spoonful and then he'd go straight exorcist on me.

[32:24] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, God.

[32:25] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: In his plate. I never forget that. And to this day. To this day. Nick. Nick. You know how Nick eats grits with sugar?

[32:36] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh. What we used to call the Yankee method when I was at Chilean, all the northerners would put sugar on their grits.

[32:47] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yes, yes.

[32:48] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Disgusting. It's not Cream of Wheat, guys. Now, you know, I. I feel like I've had your grits, but not for such a long time. So as far as I know, and no insult, no, no slight intended, the best grits maker I know is Monica. Right? Anytime I'm at Monica's house in the morning, it's like, oh, please make me some grits. But I hate you. You know what I always wanted yours is that damn potato salad. You make the best potato salad on any known planet.

[33:23] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yep. I gotta agree with you.

[33:28] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So what's the secret?

[33:30] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Hellman's mayonnaise.

[33:32] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And.

[33:36] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: That'S it.

[33:37] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What kind of potatoes?

[33:39] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Red or brown? It doesn't make. Make a difference. Hell month. Mayonnaise. And. And cook the potatoes real soft and then skin them. Don't, don't, don't.

[33:49] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Don't peel them and boil them.

[33:50] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: No.

[33:51] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And then I know you. You do something with the. Because you said you don't like chunks of.

[33:56] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I purify my. My seasoning in a. In a little food processor now. Yeah, yeah.

[34:03] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: And what do you do? Celery.

[34:06] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Celery eggs. I'm sorry. Celery, onion and bell pepper. And then I put a little garlic salt.

[34:11] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What kind of onion?

[34:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Huh? What kind of white onion?

[34:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: White onion? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like, Beside which all other potato salads are mere gruel, as the line goes.

[34:27] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I hear you.

[34:29] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: So busy, you feel like you Had a good life, man.

[34:38] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Had a great life. Wonderful life.

[34:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[34:40] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Wouldn't trade it.

[34:41] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What's your. What's your. What's your. You have a best memory. Favorite memory.

[34:51] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Got so many, man. I can't. I can't single one out. Okay, okay. I. I remember my. My favorite member is when my two sons was born.

[35:02] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[35:05] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I mean, that was fantastic to me.

[35:08] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah.

[35:10] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: But growing up. I remember when I was growing up, my favorite thing to do was, as I told you earlier, was to go out to Ms. Yvonne's house. I would get so excited when she would say she was coming. I would go and sit in Daddy's car looking in the mirror, waiting for her car to come down off the hill on Selma Street.

[35:31] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What. What kind of car did he have then?

[35:34] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I don't know. American. American motor car.

[35:37] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Big American motors car.

[35:39] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I think he had that red. No, he didn't have the red one.

[35:41] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: That was it. After the. After the red car.

[35:44] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It might have been Mama's car. I think it was the Plymouth. Mama had a Plymouth. Mama had just started working. They had a 57 Plymouth with fishtails.

[35:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, yeah.

[35:54] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, I got a story about that. That's. That's the one that I told her. Well, let me wash your car. We used to live. That's when we were living at 804. And she gave me the keys, and I took off in the car. And I'm showing off for Craig, and I'm over at the Texaco station on Scott street and Washington Avenue.

[36:10] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: How old were you?

[36:12] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I might have been 13, 14.

[36:15] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You didn't even have a license.

[36:17] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Wait a minute. Let me tell you. I didn't know you were supposed to slow down when you turned the corner. And I ran a carpet to these people's yard. They had, like, a brick thing around their yard. I knocked all the bricks down. So every time I would. She had a standard shift. Every time I would change the gears, my head would go down below the. So I jumped out and ran and I came back home and told her somebody had stolen her car.

[36:45] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Did she ever find out the truth?

[36:47] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Uncle Julian had called her. By the time I got home, they already knew. Buster just wrecked your car Over.

[36:54] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oops.

[36:55] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, my goodness. It was terrible, bro.

[36:58] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I bet it was.

[36:59] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: And then the time I ran away from home, up under the house, up under the back porch.

[37:08] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Was it not full of fleas under there? Pull me up, I was gonna say.

[37:13] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Oh, yeah.

[37:14] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: What year was that?

[37:16] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I don't know. That's when it was cold. Oh, my God. It must have been 32 degrees. It, I was freezing. I, I did some things, boy, I was, I was a little terrible.

[37:27] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah. I remember again, right hook.

[37:32] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: So that, that never happened, bro.

[37:35] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: You, you, dude, it totally happened.

[37:38] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: You were hallucinating.

[37:39] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I can still, I can still see it in my mind's eye.

[37:41] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Yeah, I thought that's the only place it was, was in your mind's eye because it never happened to me.

[37:45] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Yeah, no, well, I can, I can still feel your jaw slewing across, so. But buster, you got to remember, right? You know, I was basically, you know, everybody to this day, right? Like, you know, I think my favorite memory of you is you were in Atlanta for something. It was around Christmas time and I was dating C. Hicks at the time, my one long term boyfriend. We dated for like five years. And you brought, you brought me that camera, you brought me a digital camera for Christmas and you were like on your way out of town, so you just swung by and we met you out by the curb and it's actually in front of this house when I live in now. And you met senkei and that was actually really great. You, you know, after, after your reaction to finding out I had a white girlfriend, I was like, I don't know how this is gonna go, but it was fun, man.

[38:46] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: It is what it is. I mean, it is what it is, but my choice. Live your life, Enjoy your life.

[38:53] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Oh, absolutely. I, I tell that story to say, and you know, I mean, I, yeah, I, I, I, I, I date women and men. The issue was everybody called me a sissy this day. Like you could call me a faggot and I just like shrug. You call me a, I'm going to have to part my foot in your ass. So. Right. I'm still sensitive to that. So. Yeah, it's, it's interesting to me how times change. But I gotta say I'm glad you were my brother. I wouldn't have had anybody else for.

[39:44] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: The job I got you. Thank you.

[39:47] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: I love you, Bus.

[39:48] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: I love you too, man.

[39:50] EDWARD AUSTIN HALL: Thank you so much for making time to do this and talk with me.

[39:54] LEANDER A. BUSTER HALL III: Alrighty. No problem.