NO REGRETS

Chapter 1
“HUMBLE BEGINNINGS”
My parents, James Otis Butcher and Beulah Iris Gammon were born in rural eastern Tennessee in the early 1900’s. Dad was born in 1906 and mother was born in 1904. They were married in Union County, Tennessee on September 1, 1923 by a justice of the peace. Both of my parents came from large families and had to leave school early in life to work in the cotton and tobacco fields to help support their parents and many siblings. Dad left school in the 10th grade and Mother dropped out of school in the 8th grade.
My folks moved to Detroit, Michigan in the late 1920’s to find employment. My dad found work in the food business and told me he had actually unloaded box-cars of bananas with the infamous Jimmy Hoffa.
Dad was a man who stood about five feet, six inches tall and weighed about 145 pounds. But he was one of the strongest men I have ever met. Dad drove a grocery truck for the C. F. Smith Grocery Company all over the city of Detroit and surrounding suburbs for many years. As I was growing up, Dad occasionally would allow me to ride along with him on his deliveries. I stood in awe as Dad would throw half a cow over his shoulder and carry it into the freezer through the back of the grocery store. Some of those slabs of meat had to weigh almost as much as Dad!
Although I was born in Detroit, Michigan at the Florence Crittenton Hospital, on March 9, 1933, my folks moved to Hazel Park, a suburb starting just north of Eight Mile Road, the northern border of Detroit city limits.
Dad subsequently got a job at the Allegheny-Ludlum Steel Company in suburban Ferndale, Michigan where he worked in the rolling mill to help forge red hot metal into huge steel bars.
My childhood was fairly unremarkable and I always felt love from both of my parents. Serving God was their number one priority and we were in church no less than three times per week.
My father sang in several gospel quartets during the 40’s and 50’s and was very instrumental in starting gospel singing conventions in the greater Detroit, Michigan area. His quartet sang on the radio for several years at a station in Royal Oak, Michigan. In fact, shortly after I met Marvel, my fiancée, she joined a newly formed trio and sang with my father.
At one point in my growing up years my father was gone a lot with gospel music demands, so much so that my mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for several days. Fortunately, their marriage prevailed in spite of some anxious days during this period. I was old enough to be concerned but do not feel those difficult times had any long term negative effect upon my life.
My mother was a homemaker and never worked outside of the home during her married life. Mother never learned to drive a car and was known for walking long distances everywhere she lived. Sometimes she would walk two or three miles to buy groceries or to visit friends.
My mother prayed for me every day since I was born until she passed away just shy of eighty-nine years. She felt her calling in life was to be a faithful wife to my father and a Godly mother to her son.
Any success I have ever achieved in my life; personally, athletically, or professionally, is due in large part to my mother’s prayer life. I will forever be grateful to her for her devotion to God and relentless prayer for her only child.
My folks lived paycheck to paycheck all of their married lives. They never owned enough money to even open a checking or savings account during their marriage. Yet, my father was one of the most generous men I have ever known. It was well known in and around the family and the Free Will Baptist Churches in the greater Detroit area that James Otis Butcher, affectionately known by many as “Butch”, would always be available if you needed money or anything else. Dad would never turn down a friend or family member if they needed twenty dollars or fifty dollars. He never kept records and he loaned much more than he was ever repaid.