Reflections: Remembering The Colonel

Enjoy our “Reflections” post — one of many vignettes and stories featuring memories of days gone by. This installment is from Bettye Hudson Galloway of Oxford, Mississippi. 
If you would like to contribute your own Reflections story, send it, along with photos, to hottytoddynews@gmail.com.

It is approaching spring once again. The hardwood trees will soon present their leaf buds anticipating the warmth of the sun, students are already planning their leisurely summers away from the classrooms, football players will soon don their practice uniforms in anticipation of a record-breaking season, and my thoughts turn to memories of a beautiful campus and old friends and colleagues.
When I think of my friends, I immediately think of the name “Presley,” one of my friends, and one of my heroes, and I don’t mean Elvis! My favorite Presley was a kind distinguished gentleman by the name of Kernal Presley, Colonel Kernal Presley. My office, in the late sixties, was the Personnel Office on the first floor of the Lyceum Building at the University of Mississippi. Colonel Presley’s office was on the second floor of the Lyceum which housed Financial Aids, Student Counseling, Placement, and the building’s coffee shop. Ah, that coffee shop! Although I worked with very interesting members of the University faculty and staff, Colonel Presley’s days were spent with students, and nothing can be more entertaining, enlightening, and nerve-wracking than spending eight hours a day with college students! The only thing that kept us going in those days was the strong, black, bitter coffee from an old battered coffee machine at the end of the second-floor corridor. It was a life saver.
Since we were both client-driven, be it faculty or student appointments, we always seemed to reach the coffee shop later than the other building employees who seemed to adhere to a strict ten o’clock coffee break, and oftentimes we were the only ones there. I would go up the stairs, get my coffee from the machine, and watch as Colonel Presley came down the long hall, a tall, straight, dignified gentleman, always dressed impeccably with his coat across his arm like he was viewing a passing parade, and always wearing a smile. Consequently, without others present, we often discussed personal topics. I learned many things about Colonel Presley and his family.
I learned that he had a delightful wife, Lenora, that he had a small daughter named Sarah, and two sons of whom he was so proud, Barney and David. He talked about his sons endlessly and kept me informed of all their escapades and events. I knew that Colonel Presley had served in the military and had been a German prisoner of war. Usually he was a very private, quiet person, but ours was a comfortable coffee-drinking friendship, and we discussed a myriad of topics. He once told me that he preferred not to be called Mr. Presley because that was not a warm title. He indicated that if he were called “Colonel Presley” it denoted a bit of respect; if he were called “Kernal Presley” it denoted friendship, and with the spoken word it all sounded the same so that any given day he would accept it any way he wanted.
One morning we were in the coffee shop as usual, and I bluntly asked him, “How long were you a prisoner of war? How long were you in a prison camp?” He said, “Whoa, Bettye, you asked me two questions. Which one do you want me to answer?” I looked askance at him, and he continued. He said that he was captured and confined to a German prison camp. When Russians pushed toward them, the Germans marched them across Europe to another location. They were confined there until the Allies began a push toward them, and the Germans would march the prisoners back across Europe to another location. This went on until the end of the war. Consequently, he said, most of the time he was a prisoner he spent marching back and forth across Europe, most of it in freezing weather. He said, “Bettye, have you ever noticed that I always have a coat folded across my arm?” I acknowledged that I did. He explained that he swore while he was a prisoner of war that he would never be cold again. He said that, summer or winter, he always had a coat with him. He said that he knew it was a psychological problem, but that it worked, that even in the heat of summer if he didn’t have his coat, he would be physically cold.
Colonel Presley was the kindest and most interesting man I have ever met. When cancer took him away, a great void was left in the hearts of all who knew him. But I am convinced that St. Peter met him at the Pearly Gates and handed him his coat as he entered.
Farewell, my coffee-drinking friend. You gladdened my days.

Born, reared, and educated in Oxford, Lafayette County, Mississippi, Bettye Hudson Galloway is retired from Mississippi state service (primarily from the University of Mississippi) and as executive vice president of an analytical laboratory.

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