I was born Free Mason Johnson, Jr. in the sleepy
little town of Aiken, South Carolina. My father was
named in honor of the Free and Accepted Masons, of
which his father was Grand Master at the time of his
birth, and I, of course, inherited the name from him.
The work ethic being very strong in my family, from the time I could push a broom I worked in our family-owned drug store. When I was old enough to get a drivers license, I began delivering prescriptions throughout the Aiken area, and was later pressed into service, under my father's supervision, filling prescriptions. I don't ever remember getting an allowance; I earned a salary, small as it was, for work after school and on weekends.
On the right is a photograph of my mother and father, Rosalie and Free Mason Johnson, Sr., two of the most wonderful parents anyone could ask for. They provided the wholesome environment and encouragement I needed to develop a love of reading and a desire to do well, academically, early in my school years.
Because I often heard fine music at home, I developed an avid interest in music in junior high school which led me to take up various brass instruments, including slide and valve trombone, trumpet and baritone euphonium. By the time I entered high school, it was not unusual for me to practice my trombone 5 or 6 hours a day. Because of this dedication, I won a seat on the South Carolina All-State Band twice. I spent altogether nine wonderful years in marching and concert bands at Martha Schofield High School, Aiken, and at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, where I earned a Letter in Music (Band). My favorite music is classical, although I enjoy most musical forms.
I entered Morehouse at 17, a mere boy thrown to the wolves in the big city of Atlanta, and it was a bit much for a small town lad to comprehend. Between the constant call to party and the occasional civil rights demonstration, I paid too little attention to priorities, and although I completed all requirements for a B.A. in Psychology, I had accumulated too many chapel cuts to allow graduation without additional classwork. During those days, chapel attendance was mandatory; more than the allowed number of chapel cuts resulted in additional semester hours being added to the requirement for graduation. I received an invaluable education at Morehouse but, alas, no degree.
By 1963 I had gotten married, so I no longer had the luxury of taking my time in school. I moved on to Paine College in Augusta, Georgia that year, where, in June of 1964, I graduated with a bachelor's in Natural Sciences and a minor in Social Studies.
My teaching career began in 1964 as a favor to Professor A. T. Stephens, principal of Freedman Elementary School in Graniteville, South Carolina. There I most often taught science, but there was one year in which I taught all subjects for the sixth grade.
To put that first teaching assignment into perspective, I should mention that I had no formal preparation for teaching. I had taken none of the courses in education, child development or practice teaching that are common requisites for such an assignment today. I was given an extremely modest room, a piece of chalk and a blackboard, and my ingenuity had to take it from there.
To shed further light on this dismal situation, I should mention that the sixties were peculiar years for rural education in the Southeast. During that time, if one had a degree, it was not uncommon for him or her to be allowed to teach virtually any subject in the public school system, particularly in the black schools of Edgefield County, South Carolina, but to an extent this was also true in my native Aiken County. I later justified my own appointment by scoring 157 points over the national requirement for an "A" on the Commons portion of the National Teachers Exam (NTE). Still the problem remained. The idea, to be sure, was to put teachers in classrooms, no matter what their initial subject matter qualifications might have been, so scarce were they at the time; certification in these areas would presumably come later.
But this often amounted to an almost cavalier disregard for the right of the black child to a quality education in school districts where this practice flourished. I remember I was offered the position of bandmaster at Parker High School in Edgefield, South Carolina in 1964, solely on the basis of my performance as a band member in high school and at Morehouse! Bear in mind my major was Natural Sciences. I actually interviewed for the position, oddly enough, although I had absolutely no qualifications for it. I'd like to think that I would never have accepted such a tenuous situation regardless, but what made me adamant about looking elsewhere for employment was when the black principal asked me what make and model car I drove. When I pointed to my aged 1958 Volkswagen outside his window, he smiled approvingly. "After all," I remember him saying to me, "We can't drive a better car than our Superintendent." Behind that smile, I knew he was deadly serious. Strange times, indeed.
At any rate, that one year teaching position I reluctantly accepted gradually evolved into seven years in the classroom, during which I had a variety of assignments. I was variously teacher and Head of the Science Department at Johnston Training School (junior high school) in Johnston, South Carolina; teacher and Acting Head of the Mathematics Department at Ridge Hill High School in Ridge Spring, South Carolina, where I was also accepted, unofficially, as Assistant Bandmaster under Leroy Rivers, rehearsing brass sections, and occasionally conducting; and for a time I was even a substitute teacher at the Virginia State School (for the blind and deaf) in Hampton, Virginia. I eventually climbed out of what had by then become a rut and struck out to do something I really wanted. I joined the U.S. Navy on October 29, 1971.
After numerous Navy schools and a number of duty assignments, ranging from Beaufort, South Carolina to Guam and Okinawa, I transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 1993. My 22 years service saw my promotion from Hospitalman to Chief Hospital Corpsman, and allowed me duty at large and small hospitals, large and small medical clinics, two tours of duty as instructor at the Navy's Pharmacy Technician School in San Diego, and two tours of duty with the Marines. Wherever I was assigned, I seized the opportunity to study cultural differences, whether it was in the Sea Islands area off the coast of Beaufort, South Carolina, or on the islands of Guam and Okinawa. Each location presented a once in a lifetime chance to expand my horizons and my understanding of the way others live.
My two tours with 3rd. Medical Battalion, Force
Service Support Group, Fleet
Marine Force, Camp Hansen, Okinawa were especially
rewarding. I was on my second when the Gulf War began.
We were in the field for training, sometimes a month or
more at a time, in typhoon rains, mud, and stiffling
humidity. I think I've had enough field life never to
need to go camping again.
The Fleet Marine Force collar device shown at
right is what Hospital Corpsmen wear when assigned to a Marine
unit.
I thoroughly enjoyed my naval career, each new assignment competing with the last as my most memorable, but I'll always fondly remember the two years my family and I spent on Guam. There is probably no place on earth where the sun shines more brightly over perpetually warm, crystal clear waters than Guam. Crayoned turquoise close to shore by coral formations, the ocean gradates into deepest blue as it reaches toward a horizon visible from virtually any point on the island. Coconut palms lean languidly in picture postcard splendor over gently lapping wavelets on her beaches, playful seabreezes intermittently disturbing their graceful fronds; and her sunsets!--Pacific island beauty personified! I would gladly have spent the rest of my life there, but that was not to be.
I moved on from Guam to Naval Hospital, San Diego, where one of my most enjoyable stateside assignments was as Chief in Charge of the Biomedical Photography Laboratory. The talented and dedicated medical photographers I worked with daily were instrumental in encouraging me to continue pursuit of the craft after I left active duty. My mother reminds me that I was first exposed to photography by watching my pharmacist father, back in the 1950's, as he studied the art, then operated his own studio for a time in a building behind our family drug store in Aiken. But whatever the origin of my love for photography, I do seem to have hypo in my veins, and that Med Photo assignment simply awakened me to the fact.
Toward the end of my Photo Lab experience, I took on responsibility for most of the hospital's public relations photography, and was frequently published in the hospital's newspaper, "The Drydock." I even managed to get some of my photographs published in "Navy Medicine," the Navy Medical Department's official magazine. I shot everything from command promotion ceremonies to retirements; from change of commands to human interest pieces, and I generally processed and printed all my own work.
As usually happens when you're having too much fun in a work environment, something comes along to bring you back to reality. In my case, this change came in the form of a different assignment in 1991, on my return from my last tour with the Marines. I was assigned to the Hospital's Pharmacy Service, as head of the enlisted division. All in all, it was not the most enjoyable assignment I've had, but it was one of the most rewarding, because every day brought a new challenge. Few departments in a Naval Hospital take as much flack as the pharmacy, for any number of reasons, so I had my hands full trying to keep everybody happy. This final assignment, in a very real sense, was the crowning achievement of my naval career, since it represented the pinacle of a pharmacy technician's dream. I retired as the Chief in Charge of the Navy's largest hospital pharmacy. Some say the hospital at Bethesda is larger, but in terms of prescription volume and number of patients seen, I believe San Diego has Bethesda beat.
I had one helluva time in the Navy, but life moves on.
When I left active duty, I enrolled at Grossmont College, El Cajon, California and studied Fine Arts Photography, History, Art History and Economics, leaving with Associates of Arts degrees in all four in July, 1997. My particular favorite was (and is) photography, and thanks to the kind guidance of my photography professor, Suda House, I developed a keen interest in alternative photographic processes.
But I was also bitten by the computer bug around that time, so in August of 1998 I completed my Master's in Telecommunications Systems Management at National University here in San Diego.
Another of my interests is the history of United States Naval Forces in the Pacific during World War II. I'm fond of collecting and reading books written by the participants and published during the war years, 1939-1945, or shortly thereafter, and I love searching for these vanishing originals at local area swap meets.
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History of Dr. C. C. Johnson's Drugstore
