Rob St. Clair and Stephen Scott

00:03 My name is Rob Sinclair. I'm an old man at 73. But today is Monday, October 18th, 2021 or here in Columbus, Georgia, and I'm interviewing or talking with my partner. Steve. Scott is a longtime friend.

00:19 Steve, Steve Scott, age 79, it's Monday, October 6th 18th. We're in Columbus, Georgia. And I'm talking with my friend, Rob Sinclair. Steve. Let me ask you a couple questions. You know, I'm from up North and being from up North. I know where Georgia is. I know Alabama's next door, but after that the stage kind of running a blur. I know you're from Fairhope, Alabama. That's where you're originally from but nobody knows where Fairhope is. Where is it in? Hide your family end up being there?

00:54 Fairhope is is a little town on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay across the bay from mobile and it started as kind of a utopian thing. I've called a single tax, me and my mother came over on the bay, steamer in 1926 before there was a road.

01:15 And it was really like, my Barry when we were growing up for you or like most kids. I can't wait to blow this Burg head. Will he didn't know what we had now? It's very popular. A lot of people know where it is. They have an Arts and Crafts Festival every year. And to me it's kind of been dizzy, Disney eyes and keeps it. But it's a wonderful place, Fairhope Alabama. And one of the things I know you are biscuits and I think you wants told me you learned how to cook them from growing up in from a maid or somebody that you had in your house helping you cook.

01:59 Well, this sounds unusual for the 50s. But we kind of grew up together with a black family and Rose Gaskins had 13 kids and it was just my mother and I and we were dirt poor and they quote work for us. Actually. It was a survival mechanism for two widows. So we change clothes and everything else. And I'm sure we had

02:30 Some, some people with racist personalities back then, but I don't ever remember seeing them. It was really coexisted. So Rose took a shine to me. And one of my favorite things was to come home from Auburn and go to her house for fried chicken dinner and had to go down, several country roads down the dirt road, another dirt road and walk down a path to her house. And she had one of these Jim Walter Homes and unfinished. Matter fact. She didn't have any Windows. She had a tarp over the window.

03:05 But the chicken had been clucking around the yard at morning and turnip greens and

03:13 Just delicious food, but the biscuits she made were just unbelievable and it dims magic biscuits. And she had a wooden.

03:30 Biscuit Bowl, carved out of a piece of wood. That was 80. Something years old at the time.

03:36 And finally, one day, she said, honey. My kids don't care. I'm going to tell you how to make biscuits. So she made them with with flower Rumford baking powder, lard and ice water.

03:53 And she, she taught me how to make them, and they were so good, A little crunchy on the outside and light on the inside. You felt like, if you let it go, just float up to the ceiling.

04:06 And so Rose died. And I didn't find out till after the funeral. So I was really heartbroken and her older son Glover. The oldest son showed up on my mother's, doorstep one day.

04:25 With a grocery bag. And inside the grocery bag was that bow and he said, mama won't stay you to have this. I still have the bowl and it's about a hundred and thirty-six years old. Now. I remember seeing it. I let me ask this. What year did you graduate, from high school? 1961. So you're down there in Fairhope. Where do you go next?

04:48 I went to college at Auburn and had no business going to college cuz I didn't have any money or any sense or anything else will burn.

05:02 Oh.

05:04 I don't really know. I had several people say you need to pick a smaller College because you will be eating up the big college that a big College Auburn at the time, was like 60, 500 students. And everybody was Raising Cain, cuz they just raised the quarterly tuition from 35 to $45.

05:31 Enough for seven men day. Every women, every woman, so I figured I'd need to get an edge. So I wouldn't got a job with the girls dining hall.

05:42 Quince my true education came from.

05:47 You know, that old thing, sugar and spice and everything. Nice. And I know you're involved with music at Auburn. Did you have that before you got the college?

06:05 Yes, I started taking band in 7th grade.

06:11 And I wanted to be a drummer and I went to the band director like 3 years in a row before that. He said you're too small which hurt my feelings. And so finally I start taking back in the 7th grade. And so I'm a drummer but I would get so frustrated during concert season counting at 84 measures rest to do one thing on a triangle that I taught myself how to play tuba. Okay, and that was 1958. I was a beginner then and I'm still a beginner, but I have my own horn.

06:50 And somebody asked me why I bought her tuba, and I so I can blow my own horn. Now, when you were started in architecture and spent

07:05 The first year in architecture,

07:08 And I had to take Army ROTC cuz back then it was a land-grant college, like Georgia and Clemson and every able-bodied male have to do that and I didn't like that at all. But that was very pleased when I got to Navy OCS to find out. I was in the E3 instead of an 81 and I got a fatter paycheck. When he did take ROTC at Auburn. Then when you graduated did you didn't go into the service?

07:37 Yeah, I graduated earlier than I had planned. I went 14 core straight because I didn't want to miss anything in the dining hall. And if we had an advisor who is notorious for messing people up, and having to come back a year later to take one course and I went to went to register two weeks before the end of the quarter, when I was practice takes in the in the the guy said, you're graduating it. I said, yeah, ho ho ho sign here and it was so insistent that went to the College of Education and they said oh, yeah, if you got all your courses and I panicked and ran up the hill to Sanford Hall, the registrar's office and they said yeah, if you got bowling, you got this, you got enough credits, you're graduating, take, take this little thing, slip down the Student Union, get your cap and gown.

08:35 So I was shot out of a academic room prematurely. What year was this Martian? 1965 all kinds of Navy, Navy emblems on it. Now, from when you graduated did is that when you went into the Navy, one scenarios in 1965 got a commission and went to short it in Norfolk and then got on a ship which went to Vietnam the next day. So went all over the South Pacific and then we were

09:16 Very fortunate, we got selected out of a thousand ships in active service at the time. I think they're about 270 now.

09:26 Want a free surface ships to go on a unitox cruise, which is a six-month.

09:32 Southern hemisphere.

09:36 Kind of show the flag thing working with South American navies.

09:41 So let me backup. You really had a great career in the Navy, you retired as an 06 or a captain, but during that. Of time you spent a year in Vietnam on a destroyer or was that what he arrived. But then you've always been involved with your ship's reunions throughout the years where this jacket came from a ship made, had had a Jack and I was in there. So I made one and I had

10:10 One couple of patches up in the attic. Matter fact, the big one on the back is 54 years old and I found those and I went to a tailor and then the rest of my ordered. So every patch on her except the pows and place. I've been assigned or been to at least 20 or so patches on your jacket. Do you still attending your ship reunions every time I can? And how many people are still showing up?

10:37 You slay about 70 or 80 but it's dropped to Shipmates like 25 in the rest as rest of the family and friends, so, which is pretty cool. Cuz now, their grandkids coming to the reunions, that is nice beside your ear in Vietnam this store that you went on. What countries did you travel and visit when you were on that tour and the unit cost is Colombia Venezuela for sale by Argentina Chile.

11:14 Ecuador and Panama, or maybe it was Argentina that you had a chance to meet either the president's daughter who did, who did you know? That wasn't. Until I, I was assigned to escort the u.s. Ambassador to Chile, his daughter, to some grand ball, great experience on that tour.

11:40 Who is amazing at?

11:43 I've had some.

11:45 Some really unusual experiences. I've been onto ill-fated ships.

11:53 I was stepped on board, the play blow, and you could Japan in December of 67 looking for a shift supervisor to sign a work order. And I knew, I knew what it was, but it was a dumpy little ship that was originally Army Coastal transport. And so it sells short time later and was captured by the North Koreans and they considered a war prize hits. Now Museum.

12:25 And then, and

12:27 Argentina. I got invited to.

12:32 Pretty wild party on on their Cruiser general belgrano, which is a form of u.s.s. Phoenix.

12:40 And it was very exciting, but I thought, well, I'm married.

12:46 I don't want to be part of the international incident. So I left and that ship was the one torpedoed by the British during the Falklands War with the loss of

12:57 Many, many lives. That's right. What year? What year did you finally retire from the Navy ended up with 28 years. Most of it reserved time. I got called back and 1990 for the whole year, actually had nine sets of orders.

13:17 And so I finally retired in September of 92, but those she don't know. Columbus really is a military town. You wouldn't necessarily know it, but we have Fort Benning here in one of the things that you do, even though you're in the Navy, you throw an annual party each year. For all your Navy, friends. What's that all about?

13:38 Well.

13:40 I've been doing this for about 12 years or so the week of the Navy's birthday, which is October 13th. I throw a little 2-hour cocktail party for old salts to get together and tell 6C tails.

13:58 And that's it. That's a great time cuz I've been do it. You let me come. Even though I was in the Marine Corps, Navy Coast Guard Marine Corps Merchant Marine use. He's got more Talent so I can imagine we're going to get back to music and just a minute, but I know you are. So, right? You are an author of your publisher. You going to head and publish children's books. Tell us about your children's books.

14:23 Well, I started out of stories that I made up to entertain my younger children when they were about six years old and nine. And I kept them in a folder for many years until I retired and I had had the time to do something with him.

14:44 And I'm first one was about Kudzu. The you have you back with us buying in the South, some people say it's the mile a minute buying in the vine that ate the South.

14:57 And the second one was actually.

15:01 We wrote together cuz I had read a story come on night. That was kind of lame. And Stephen said she'd add that one wasn't so hot and Sarah said, yeah, we could do better. So I said, okay smarty-pants come up with an idea and will write the book and they decided it was a little boy who didn't like the vegetables and he disparages mother's cooking, special Potter, Thai pork and he gets in trouble and storms out and goes into town and then it becomes kind of a dream-like sequences. Every restaurant Lagos is more bizarre than the lasting course. It's immoral tales that he ends up coming home.

15:49 When did you start that part of this the PD series or is that separate?

15:56 The the third book was a Caribbean Adventure. The first two were in verse.

16:02 The fourth book was actually a series of photos that Pete's mother took.

16:12 And each one of them prompted, an idea like I would look at it, such a waste, James Bond for the Karate Kid. And so I wrote these kind of

16:23 Old time radio serials fantasies to go with the picture and that's the Amazing Adventures of Professor p d.

16:32 I started calling him professor PD, when he was 4 and said, Papa. I suggest I am much smarter than you.

16:41 And the joke was when he was five. He could make up something. He knew nothing about and say actually that's not correct. My mother says blah blah blah.

16:52 So the last book was the world according to Professor PD.

16:59 And I didn't think I could do it, but I got shamed into doing the illustrations for that. So, PD is kind of a little Calvin and Hobbes know-it-all Adventure Legos. I haven't been seven continents and all the typical things for each country, the Taj Mahal, and the Eiffel Tower, and all that. And how old is Petey now pay this 14 now. So and he lives in Hawaii about illustrating, another talent that you have besides writing. But another talent you have is you also draw and paint. So you Illustrated these books yourself. Where did you learn how to illustrate or Draw?

17:49 Well, I think I inherited a little bit of it. My mother went to the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1900s.

17:58 And so we always had pens and pencils and tempera paint and so forth. So when I was five and six, I went to the strange little school through powdery on a oil and I would paint little Woodland sings and makes my own colors and never think anything about it and then get older, you get your confidence back. Now. I will not only be illustrate, but you also paint because you remember the Columbus artists Guild and I recall seeing one of your entries. It's a picture of two destroyers out on the Open Seas. Where is this an oil painting?

18:38 Well, my wife Adeline discovered only like 7 or 8 years ago that she had tremendous artistic talent.

18:52 And she's now 77 and vice-president artists Guild. And she's done every medium possible or big thing as finger painting cuz she found a friend. And Ira Scott who is some

19:07 She didn't invent finger painting but she's very famous for it. And we became friends with her and talked her into coming down, from New York City to do Workshop against all the naysayers, and it was highly successful. And Ira, Scott is now selling her paintings for 10 to $20,000. She's a millionaire and she's been featured in 30 magazine Forbes, and Barons and Smithsonian.

19:35 She's just very humble sweetheart, as a finger painter. Yeah, so your wife, Adeline does the same thing. Did you start painting as a result of that loan then?

19:47 No, I've always drawn and then do much painting, but

19:56 I've taken.

20:00 A lot of the workshops.

20:03 Because I had one on my calm, this baby.

20:08 Coerce me into doing it. So I took this oil Workshop, a year ago with her. It was a 6-day class than I thought. What am I doing here? The first day I was catatonic and the second day. I ate a lot of donuts and finally.

20:28 You need to start doing something. So I ended up doing for paintings. And one of them was the one you mentioned. I had taken, we were in a column before Navy ships in the South China Sea, going from Hong Kong to cap showing Taiwan. We got caught in a typhoon and the, the waves were a hundred and twenty something say hi. We literally had to go uphill on the wave and downhill. So we were second in the column and I took this photo of Destroyers behind us, and I've had her all these years. And so Allen said, why don't you try to paint that?

21:12 So I did and I was about ready to throw it in the trash in the instructor said, won't you just try this in this? And there was and now it's hanging in the Columbus library as part of the annual show for the Columbus Charter School. Let me skip back. You graduated from Auburn you finish. Your active duty with the Navy. What brought you to Columbus for this area then?

21:38 Well, wife number one, I I'm still friends with and go to Key West every February to the visit with that family.

21:53 I've came back to Auburn to get a masters in music education and she works as a high school teacher to help me get through that year and then she got a fellowship. So it was my turn.

22:09 And I found a abandoned Rector job in Phenix, City, Alabama, which is just right across the river.

22:17 And then you, if you stayed here, ever since I always teaching at the high school or no, I only taught for years and living teaching was probably the dumbest decision I've ever made. My boob and kitties are now, 67 and 68 and there are at least fifty of them that keep up with me on Facebook involved with the Auburn alumni band, that right. The Auburn band is 124 years old. And some forty years ago. They started an alumni band and we usually have two or three hundred and alumni band from recent graduates, all the way back to people my age. And it is a fantastic experience. And we this is usually at homecoming and we do the homecoming show with the student band. So,

23:15 The hundredth anniversary of the Auburn band.

23:20 We had 500 in the alumni band.

23:23 When they have an annual conference every year at the same time, braided Union. And I was on the board for three years and president for two years. And so I went a couple of weeks ago.

23:39 And that marks my 60th year of Auburn band. You still playing now?

23:46 I play drums, that played in Band, Saw My Life. Most of what I play now is spoons and washboard. Can we find you down on Broadway on a Friday night sometime playing spoons and washboard that's coming. That's coming. Let me change W. Should I want to go back to this? You still right? And you're working on a book about Columbus. Tell us about that.

24:11 Well, I've got two projects going on. I'm trying to finish up a book of my Whimsical poems called brain biscuits, and I'm about 95% through with that and hope to get it off publisher sign.

24:25 But I've embarked on football, probably a two-year Journey writing about historic preservation in Columbus. When I first came to Columbus, did not like it at all. It was in the trade Drury place, and now I wouldn't want to live anywhere else and some people call me the ambassador of Columbus, but we've had

24:53 Lately, it's just incredible activity. We used to have nothing here for tourist. Now. We have about 40, venues the Civil War Naval Museum. The National Infantry Museum, Columbus, Urban white water rafting course in the world. Westfield on, and on and on.

25:15 And there's so much construction and revitalization downtown. And in the late sixties. Everybody said downtown was dead and would never recover.

25:27 And there were few people who had the vision to know what we could be.

25:36 Put their ideas out there and had the vision and the courage to make it happen. Now, we're building the six hotels downtown, and construction is everywhere, and it's a very exciting place to live for people who've never been to Columbus, Georgia. Tell us about the Riverwalk. What that means? Do you how it came about?

26:01 Well, the Riverwalk is an example of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

26:08 Columbus was giving given a mandate by newly-created State Environmental organization, as well as the federal EPA to fix a problem with our combined sewer system, which

26:25 Really every most, every city in the country has

26:31 But they allowed no money. So we're in a crisis and the present of the Waterworks Billy Turner decided. Well, if we have to dig up all the riverbank and when I came here, you couldn't even see the river. Much less get to it. It was burnout cars and dead trees, and Muddy Banks. And and now it's gorgeous. It's 11 Mi along, people say 22. I guess it's going down and back landscape lighted.

27:06 Beautiful.

27:08 And so,

27:13 I started to write a story about that and I met with my friend Neil Clark who is the architect on that just to get the dates right? And everything.

27:21 And I was going to write that for my blog chatting, the hooch chatting the hooch. And then I realized it was just one small part of everything we have today. And we only have it because of the few people who saw that and had the courage. And it took courage because with every bit of improvement that change credit stripes and the lady that I interviewed that first came up with the sign ordinance to make downtown prettier.

27:57 Was publicly booed by the Ad Agency and her life was threatened.

28:04 So at every every stage of improvement, there were those kind of tensions and fight soon everything. And so it's a pretty amazing story in. I hope I live long enough to finish. It says called the emergence of Columbus. You are involved in more things and I can ever imagine explain, but one of the things I know you're involved in is What's called the drug court, here in Muscogee County. Tell us about that.

28:35 Well, my younger daughter went through a difficult period that almost put me in the grave and nobody would help and I found out about Nami National Alliance on Mental Illness and they really saved my life. So, for 20-something years. I have been an Amish supporter. I helped bring the

29:06 The mental health court here.

29:09 What's up, what's up Federal? Grant to help bring Crisis Intervention, team training here. And so the only thing that I still do, I arrange for an MC, the quarterly Muscogee County Mental Health Court graduation. Yes, which is something we just dreamed up to recognize those people who else wants living on the streets and barking at the moon, or now getting their family back and going to school, and we've even had two weddings. These people were arrested had problems were in the court system, but finally, because you are identified with mental health issues were able to participate. In this program. You have to be

29:58 Convicted in in jail. It cannot be a violent crime. But if if your situation is recognized that you're struggling with some mental illness issue.

30:12 Then you can get an evaluation and become part of this program. So it's basically a jail diversion program. And if you have to go before the judge periodically, if take random drug test, do you have to follow everything they say? And if you're successful, you stay out of jail, and the success rate is in the high-90s, which is unbelievable, cuz in Georgia, unfortunately, positive outcomes for mental health through a dismal 20-something percent.

30:49 Is a spin-off of that. I also know that you read to a group of women. I call him Wayward girls, but women that are living in there, some type of a shelter. What's a program all about?

31:03 There there is a Twin Cedars facility in Columbus. That is the Anne. Elizabeth Shepherd home and it began over a hundred years ago is a

31:18 A place for unwed mothers.

31:20 And now it is for Abused girls.

31:26 And so once a month, their storytelling and we have three storytellers that go and tell stories to the girls and it's very rewarding. Another thing and you're going to have to help him with the name of the organization. But I know that you present cash Awards, two different students at different schools and I just read about that. Tell us about that program. We had a dear friend that died a couple years ago. He was 89, but he was very, very active could dance, the night away and he played seniors championship tennis. And when he died, I wanted to do something that would keep his memory alive. And I I thought, if I came up with a few hundred dollars out of my retirement income, I could do something.

32:19 And his name and so somebody told me don't try to make it a scholarship is too complicated, making and Aid fund and I picked the Vocational High School here at Jordan high cuz of their history and spirit.

32:34 And never had any idea that other people would be interested in supporting that, but we've now started our 5th Year.

32:43 Last week and we've been able to give for $500 rewards and this is not just for financial need. This is for kids that like Fred have have suffered some real hardships and obstacles. So they're not only surviving, they're, they're thriving. So basically the counselors pick these and then they've all been little Fred's, amazing kids and some of the stuff they've been through his horrific and up this interview on a high note. I know it one point you put out a thing that said, 25 things. You that little things little things, you don't know about Steve Scott, one of them. As I know you played volleyball in the nude beach in La Jolla or something like that. But what are some of the favorite stories that you would like people to know about you that otherwise they wouldn't know.

33:43 Well, let's see. Pick one off the list. Well, how about the volcanoes that you've been in Havana Nana to volcanoes Vesuvius in Italy and eldersource in?

33:57 Costa Rica.

34:01 And I love to travel. I just finished completing the last two, states, Vermont, New Hampshire. And I've been to three of the five territories and 67 countries have 193. Countries. I've got some to go. You've been traveling a lot. How about this when you were around 5 you were in a train wreck in the middle of the night?

34:23 My mother and sister. And I so my sister was to we were on a train from Mobile to Minneapolis-Saint Paul and the Train derailed and we had to walk down the tracks in the snow for several miles and spent the night on a bench in the station and we're on our way to eventually Victoria, British Columbia.

34:52 And how about Junior High School? You fell in a well. I was on a Sunday school hayride and was at night at Gulf Shores back before there were any hotels or condos or anyting. And we decide to walk to the beach and it was dark, and I was looking up this leaky water tower and stepped on the Sabor which was rotten and broke through. And I was hanging by my arms and I could see the water below and they pulled me out. I had a gash on my eye and I had to go get my iPhone up.

35:31 Let me ask everybody, hated make is a run, the hayride that you would like the audience to know what would it be?

35:46 Well, my life is richly fulfill now, primarily because I've overcome the incredible shyness. I had in high school. My friends have crossed over, excited, but I am a researcher at her and if there's somebody I want to meet, I just pick up the phone and ask him and so I have all these Adventures I got to play my washboard.

36:15 If the corner of Royal Street in St, Peters in the French Quarter with Doreen ketchens, who in my opinion is the finest Dixieland clarinet player ever.

36:28 So, what else can you think? One last story?

36:35 Why don't we talk about you Rob? He's had a lot of time who got a lot of fun doing this and we look forward to your book coming out. Like you can look forward to mine. Coming up, killing. Dan. Should be out by the end of next month, right? That's so exciting. Because your first book saving Stacy just passed what 20,000 yelled very very happy with that and I love

37:01 This is about an unsolved murder.

37:08 Family murder and the wrong person accused and abuse and illegal doings by that.

37:18 County in Ohio from the sheriff's department. So your life has been threatened to. This is a fun story saving. Stacy the untold story of The Moody Massacre, a true story. And so the next book is coming out next month killing Dan. So, they should be fun for readers. So who's had a lot of fun this morning? Thanks, Steve. Thanks Rob.