Florence man unfolds lost years

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October 26, 2009

Anonymous The News Courier Mon Oct 26, 2009, 12:57 PM CDT

DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — The photos turned back time for Bob Stansell.

“I’m surprised I packed that much into it,” Bob Stansell said, emptying the contents of a billfold he hadn’t touched in 45 years.

The photos, driver license, draft card and various others, including his dad’s Texaco credit card and a 1962 Alabama football schedule, turned back time for the Florence man.

He began reliving his two years at then Tennessee Valley State Trade School, now Calhoun Community College, where he took a welding course but couldn’t get a career in journalism off his mind.

During a renovation about seven years ago, maintenance workers found the billfold above the ceiling tile in the men’s restroom of the old welding shop.

“Someone probably took out the cash and stuck the billfold up there,” said Donald McLemore, who was in on the find. He tucked the billfold away in an old wagon lamp for safekeeping and forgot about it.

“I meant to track Bob down, got busy and let it slide,” said McLemore, who transferred to the Calhoun-Huntsville campus 10 months ago. “Recently, the guys called and told me to come and get that lamp or they were going to toss it. I took it to my home in Elkmont, looked under the covered top of the wagon, and there was the billfold.”

McLemore got a Florence telephone number off Stansell’s draft card and rang it. He spoke to Stansell’s mother, Beatrice, 89. She and her husband, Fay, 91, had moved from their former High Street address, but their telephone number never changed.

McLemore, a 23-year Calhoun maintenance veteran, met Stansell in the welding shop, handed him the billfold and the stories began. Stansell pulled out a photo of his sister, Barbara McFarlen of Athens.

“I’m surprised I had that,” he said. “You know how brothers and sisters fight.”

Another photo was of two classmates, Larry Jaynes and Larry Watkins, who still live in the Florence area.

“That’s Bill Ponds,” Stansell said, pointing to another photo. “He lives next door to us in Sunset Beach. He was best man at my wedding.”

Stansell, 67, said his dad, who was a welder, coaxed him into taking the course.

“He wanted me to have something to fall back on in case journalism didn’t work out,” he said. “But I was always reading journalism books. Occasionally, they made me weld. I even worked one summer as an ironworker at Redstone Arsenal.”

Although the military classified Stansell 1A, he said Barrett Shelton hired him at The Daily, where he worked about a year before the Army drafted him in January 1965.

“I dropped out of Calhoun to go to work for the paper,” Stansell said.

Later stops included The Moulton Advertiser and the TimesDaily, where an “on and off” relationship that began in 1968 ended with his retirement in 1999.

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