as possible on the ground, pushing the Greenville management group for
sales profit.
I managed a new trip schedule such that I would have a night in
Raleigh, preferably a Sunday on my way to Greenville, or a Friday after
an exhaustive few days at the stations. That gave me some time to visit
Jeannie on the Raleigh campus and share an evening together. It didn’t
deprive Park of my full week devo
tion to his agenda. Just my weekend was sacrificed, and, after all, Roy
worked as long and hard both Saturday and Sunday as he did weekdays.
He despised idle weekends as much as he did vacations.
As her freshman year progressed, Jeannie tentatively revealed to me
that the coursework was far too easy. She wanted to major in economics
and communications. But she found scant choices in either and shyly
suggested that our family money might better be spent at an institution that
offered the quality of business and communication courses she had wanted
to take at Chapel Hill.
Jeannie moved the next academic year, enrolling in the New-house
School of Communication at Syracuse University to pursue a degree in
communications and business. After her sophomore year earning all As,
her professors begged her to stay and earn a dual degree of business and
communications. But, as at Raleigh, there was not enough depth and
choice in economic courses. So, foregoing the communications
component, Jeannie satisfied her appetite for demanding coursework in
economics by taking her last two years at St. Lawrence University.
Where? Way north at Canton, NY, up on the frozen St. Lawrence River,
almost to Canada. Weather aside, she ended up well educated, a result she
felt could have been achieved at The University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, only a few minutes from Roy Park’s alma mater. Jeannie
went on to a career in banking and professional freelance writing for high-
tech companies. She is happily married and lives in Atlanta.
CHAPTER 21: THROUGH OTHERS’ EYES
With money in your pocket you are wise and you are handsome and
you sing well, too.
—Yiddish Proverb
My father could never carry a tune, and I inherited this inability as well.
But like many self-made men, he was susceptible to flattery. He got plenty
of it. Nobody ever accused him of singing off-tune. As Johnnie Babcock
points out, extravagant praise and accolades were heaped on Pops over the
years with seldom a negative word. “But how many of these were the
