Karla Lockett Allbritton

Where to start? Not quite at the beginning, thank goodness! My historical association with the thriving metropolis of Clinton, MS began with my family’s move there from Mobile, AL in the summer before tenth grade. We moved in next door to Alan Rankin, so it was a pretty interesting initiation to a new town. The house we rented then was also just 2 doors down from the home of one Joe Allbritton, who was coming up on his senior year. Nice enough guy, I thought (but bad case of senioritis); good for a ride to school on occasion. OK, so after graduation, I attended MC for one very long year. This was at the insistence of my mother who somehow knew that once I left our new house I probably wouldn’t be back. You have to remember, Joe and I had already been dating for nearly 2 years. My sophomore year I transferred to MSCW (NOT "MUW".) Joe and I got married June 7, 1969, on the very first Saturday after Joe graduated. I figured one of us had to be capable of earning a living, so that’s why we waited as long as we did. I still had 12 hours to go, and waited a year to complete my degree in south Florida, to save the mind-boggling amount of $300 (!!!) in out-of-state tuition. All you parents out there can understand the amazed relief my parents obviously felt when I did actually graduate.

Joe and I lived in North Palm Beach, Florida for 3 years. Loved the beach, didn’t love the lack of seasons. Did teach for 2 years, did get pregnant (Jesse Brian, who only at his military-type college ever answered to Jesse), did decide it was time to go home. Obviously, the only thing in this list I did alone was to teach. RCA was getting a little old to Joe, so he played his Mississippi State Co-op card and went back to work with Bell, in Jackson. We, as always, school-shopped before we house-shopped, and Clinton still had the best schools in the area. Claudia Lockett (who still wants to know why I would label any person I love "Claudia") made her appearance in 1976. We, as my mother said at the time, had our million-dollar family. I thought she was kidding about the million bucks, but we haven’t been "ahead" since!

Back at the "W", I had sealed my fate of becoming a frustrated nonteacher, by selecting Social Studies as my area of expertise. Social Studies became Coaches’ Heaven (or Haven?) while I stayed home being the ultimate volunteer mom. I had morphed into a dinosaur (read "Lady History Teacher / No Coaching Experience") by the time I decided I wanted to teach again. I did everything possible to get back into the classroom, any classroom, including subbing at Clinton Junior High for 3 solid years, not to mention my days at dear old CHS being on the receiving end of a game called "Sink the Sub". It just wasn’t meant to be. In fact, I only this year gave away my entire personal teaching library that I have been collecting for all this time; about 300 history/social studies books; every thing from cavemen onward. I can’t bear yet to go through my 3 standard-sized file cabinets. Does anyone out there have need of a hugely varied collection of history-related files; it needs a good home. Five years ago I even went back to grad school at UA/Tuscaloosa in Deaf Education, thinking maybe that route would get my foot in the door to teach history again. Didn’t work. It may be my salvation that I did not get to teach in metro Birmingham, as all the schools around here are in bad trouble.

Any way, we are parents of Brian (a shocking 27), and Lockett (age 24, even more shocking; I’m not old enough to have a 24 year old baby). We are parents-in-law of Lang Ptolemy Downing Allbritton, whom we happily acquired by way of said Brian. And we have 1 grandpup, Bosley Boxer Allbritton. Cute and smart, but no cigar. Brian attended Clinton schools through the 10th grade, when he transferred to the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science in Columbus (on the W campus, where he even lived in one of my old dorms for a year). Lockett attended Clinton schools through the 8th grade, when we finally left Clinton for a year in New Jersey, compliments of Bell South. We, along with each member of Judy Massengale Reynolds’ family, have the distinction of being taught, every last one of us, by Mrs. Mittie Kay Smith. The few, the proud, the educated. Yes, we all speak and write passable English and hopefully she will not be grading this biography.

I have to tell ya’ll about our daughter-in-law-and-love, Lang Ptolemy Downing Allbritton, originally from Portland, Oregon. Brian and Lang met after he graduated from the Academy and was living in Boston, where she was in college working toward a degree in public relations. Two girl friends of Lang who lived in Brian’s building decided the two of them would make a great couple (he was tall enough, I think), so introduced them. Needless to say, both those young ladies were attendants at the Allbritton-Downing nuptials, December 19, 1998, way down south in Mobile, Alabama. Lang says people hearing her first name anticipate meeting an Asian male, and instead here comes a six-foot female! Early on in our acquaintance I asked her if "Ptolemy" was a family name. She said, yes, an ancestor by that name arrived in America via the Mayflower. So Joe promptly asked if that meant was she pedigreed-with-papers? Yes, and eventually we will probably have a little Something Ptolemy Allbritton in our extended family to extend the tradition another generation.

I guess we succeeded in giving our children those roots and wings spoken so highly of. I know those wings began to sprout after we left Clinton. Brian graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, up in Connecticut, with a degree in Electrical Engineering (shades of his father). Brian and Lang live in the suburbs of Boston in their "new" older home which I had the honor of stripping and "kilzing" for about 8 days last year. Lockett graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a degree in geology (still likes to play in the dirt). She has been in Portland, Oregon, since graduation. No, Lang had absolutely nothing to do with that move. Lockett is our very free-spirited child and she decided a few months before college graduation to join with some of her Vassar buddies in a move to Portland, just because it looked to be an interesting place none of them had actually been to visit. Turns out they all loved it, but it’s a bit too free-spirited for me! Joe and I made a trip to British Columbia (work) by way of Portland (play) last summer and got to see a little of the city, and a lot of the Northwest, then. Joe and I have lived in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, just out of Birmingham, for almost 10 years, since returning south from that verrry interesting year in New Jersey. Don’t tell me about your empty nest!

Joe is still with Bell South, for a little longer he says. I am again basically a lady of leisure. Periodically I go find something to assuage chronic cabin fever. Let’s see, since moving to B’ham I have subbed, gone full time to grad school 50 miles away for nearly 3 years, taught/tutored/interpreted for a deaf child, very briefly worked at the local Hancock Fabrics (you do not tell an old teacher that she is to give only 5 minutes’ attention to someone asking for help), and at last count made 27 bridesmaid dresses and can’t remember how many wedding veils. I would happily have given my eyeteeth to teach history again, but I have finally given up that dream.

Our ultimate future plans are to move to the Mobile, AL, area and open a bed and breakfast. Actually, we have no real intentions of doing volume business, but I want a place the kids want to come visit and Joe wants a tax write-off. After 30 years of visiting Mobile, Joe has finally agreed to move there. One, my parents live there, and two, the paper mill installed good filters!

Clinton was always a great place to raise a family. I’ll be eternally grateful that my dad decided all those years ago to buy a lot my mother didn’t want. Funny the little things that determine our fate.

Lockett, Karla, and Brian