Charles Kirk:
CLASS OF 1962
Boyden High SchoolClass of 1962
Salisbury, NC
University of North Carolina Class of 1974
Charlotte, NC
Rowan - Cabarrus Community CollegeClass of 1972
Salisbury, NC
East Rowan High SchoolClass of 1965
Salisbury, NC
Sacred Heart SchoolClass of 1958
Salisbury, NC
Charles's Story
Life
1964 - Joined the Army, married Diane Ervin (Mooresville). Those were the two best things I ever did. I had to get away from Salisbury for a while to find myself. The Army and Diane gave me a purpose. Diane loved and cared about me and I wanted to show her that I was a loving and capable person and wanted nothing but the best for her. The Army gave me the challenge to accomplish something of myself. Went to Cryptographic Repair School at Ft, Monmouth NJ. I applied myself and finished the course with high marks. Really felt good about myself and knew I could do just about anything. Got orders for Germany, ended up in a NATO outfit with European crypto gear. Went to schools in Eindhoven, Holland and Oslo, Norway to be familiar with the equipment. I absolutely loved my profession in communications and electronics. I elected to re-enlist at the end of two years for four more years. Within 3 and one-half years I went from a Private E-1 to a Staff Sergeant E-6 and was in charge of my crypto shop at Co, B Centag in Muenchweiller. Was seriously considering a career in the Army but wanted to become an officer so more education was in order. Took classes at night to try to get started. This difficult to do at this point in time. Became interested in photography, bought a 35mm camera and developed and printed my film, B/W (color was too expensive).
Diane came over to Germany before I re-enlisted (could not do without her for very long, she was my guiding star). My first son Lee was born in Germany in 1967. In May of 1968 my tour of duty was over in Germany and I had orders to Ft. Hood TX. I was told "Oh Boy, you are in a Tank Division"...Yada, yada, boo, hiss. I have found out that if you want to be miserable just dwell on the negative things. I have never been to Texas but it sounded okay to me. Texas is huge (I know Alaska is bigger). I think it is further from the Louisiana border to Ft. Hood than from Salisbury to the Louisiana border. The Crypto department was attached directly to Division headquarters so it was not that bad. The weather in central Texas is extreme in all seasons. In the summer the streets would melt and run into the gutters. The air was dry and the heat was not that apparent so you were being heat dried with no sweat until you ran out of moisture and you fell over with heat stroke. They said to drink water even if you thought you weren't thirsty.
I caught the motorcycle disease there from which there is no cure. It all started when I noticed a red Honda beside the company supply room. There was a Staff Sergeant, Shannon Richards that owned it. We became friends and I asked him about it. He said "it's great, I ride it to work every day, only takes a tank a week (2 gallons of gas.....at that time who cares). That way the wife can have the car.". Sounded like ...Expand for more
a good idea to me. I went to the Honda dealer and bought an S65 Honda. Had to learn how to drive it (good old Shannon to the rescue). Learned how to drive then had to take the Texas DMV written and driving test. Now I was a motorcycler. What was not foreseen is that Shannon had not had anybody to ride with per se. So after work we would ride around the reservation (35 miles by 45 miles). The huge(?) bikes seemed small so we learned of a motorcycle meet, a motocross race locally. Never heard of that so it was worth a try. We rented some 160cc Hondas so we could take our ladies in comfort to the race. This was in hopes we could whine and get bigger bikes. We drove up to the site that had some dust coming up and heard two stroke engines. We went by the track on the way to the entrance and saw bikes sailing off jumps and all kinds of things. I said to myself "I am going to do this!". Motocross was budding in the US but was one of the motorcycling events in Europe (guess it was not real prevalent where I was). I ended up racing motocross for 11 years until I wasn't sure my bones could take the punishment if I crashed. I still have my last motocross bike and once in a while I think "one more season...I can race in the Geritol class". Sometimes you have got to know when to quit. I still ride on the street today, don't plan on quitting (doesn't matter, it is an incurable disease anyway).
Decided to get out of the Army after 6 1/2 years, wanted to get a college education. Went to school under the GI Bill and graduated from UNCC in 1974. Accepted a job with Terminal Communications in Raleigh as an electronics engineer. We produced IBM 3270 compatible equipment. My department was responsible for maintaining the equipment when problems came up plus re-designs and developing custom features for the customers if they requested it. I became a self-proclaimed keeper of Rock 'N Roll. I have been collecting 45s, 78s, and albums of my (our) era for about 20 years. This was not a sudden thing, I have been collecting records since I could go to the record shop on Fisher Street in Salisbury. I have collected CDs also but some of them do not have the original songs. About 10 years ago I came upon software that would remove the clicks and pops and equalize the sound. I have remastered about 150 albums so far. I still have 250 more to do. The 45s I remaster and put them on CD compilations. I have a database of what I have done and I hope to have a PC with a hard drive and a search engine to become a super jukebox. I have over 3,300 titles that I played/listened to/made out to/danced to. Plus I have complete LPs of the artists, good songs that never made the 45 records but should have. This way I could do some DJ'ing and keep this beautiful music alive. I guess I could call this missionary work.
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