ABOUT PROFESSOR "BUBBA"
EARLY BACKGROUND
I had an odd childhood. Back in Georgia, I was spawned by
buzzards, hatched by the sun & raised by a
pack of friendly wild hogs. The latter probably accounts for my
dietary habits & my table manners, although I have been improving--I
no longer wipe my mouth on the table cloth or blow my nose on the
curtains. As a toddler, I was a very
homely child--click
here to
see a baby picture of Bubba. To hear a description of Bubba's appearance, as described by his own mamma click here
Adolescent life wasn't much better. Puberty came
late--which made it difficult to grow the facial hair so
characteristic of manly men back home. Facial hair was also
important in attempting to woo & court mountain women. They
saw it as a symbol of manly verility. Try as I might as a
teenager, I could only produce a few spindly scraggles on my mug.
Fearing for my masculinity & desperate to enchant all of them
tobacco-chewing mountain women, I eventually shaved the south
end of a northbound groundhog & glued it on. I maintained that
Rico Suave look for many years, however it eventually became bothersome (it was a magnet for gravy & other vittles) & I shaved it off.
Back home, my family ran the Cornfield County Museum of Barnyard Oddities.
People from miles around would come to see our main attraction, the pig with 3-snoots.
Then tragedy struck. One night my cousin "Tater" got drunk on corn liquor & when closing up,
he forgot to lock the door to the critter pens. That night, all the museum's leading
attractions including the 3-snooted pig and the world's most prolific squirrel. Business
was never quite right after that, so, alas, I had to kiss my dreams of inheriting a corporate empire goodbye.
I get alot of my smarts from my favorite uncle Elrod---back home everyone calls
him "booger". Uncle Booger was the most successful inventor in Cornfield County. He almost made
it bigtime with his first invention, the "Electric Hemorrhoid-Puller". He was close to obtaining FDA
approval when during the clinical trials, it short circuited and the test patient suffered 2nd & 3rd
degree burns over most of his behind. The court settlement is pending. Currently, Uncle Booger is using the internet to
market his latest invention, the "Bumper Dumper" .
As a teenager, I was the biggest screw up in Cornfield County
High School. The first digit in my high school GPA was behind
a decimal point--the result of laying out of class & going
fishing at Herb's Pond. Always the hellion, I was nearly
expelled from school twice. The first indescretion involved
scattering the chemical, silver nitrate, all over a nameless
teacher's desk. When she touched it to brush it off, it turned
her hands black for a month.
BUBBA'S BOOKLEARN'N: THE ROAD TO GREATNESS
My first year out of high school, I was convinced the road to
riches was not dependant upon college book learn'n, so I piddled
around in the business (pronounced "bid'nis" back home) world. For
nearly a year, I sold cars at the Cornfield County Chevrolet dealer.
I was only 18 when I got this job (which really impressed my friends
at the time--most of whom had typical jobs at Piggly Wiggly, K-Mart, etc).
My youth impeded my salesmanship & I had difficulty completing sales to
anyone other than kids, & stupid people. However, I was
quite succesful in moving the low-end used vehicles like Pintos &
Chevettes off the lot, earning me my nickname "the King of the gravel-lot".
My career as an automotive sales consulant came to an end the month I
wrecked more cars than I sold.
Now, convinced of the need of college-level book learn'n, I enrolled at
Walters State Community College in nearby Possum Holler. I got a job
calling ballgames for the college athletic department & was also editor
of the college paper. I goofed off, had fun & as a result, I was the
first person in the history of the college to have a negative-number for
a GPA. I somehow managed to "graji-ate" & moved on to East Tennessee State
University, also known as the "Harvard of Deliverance Country". The ETSU
football team is so bad, they thought about changing their nickname to
"the fight'n possums" -- cause they get killed on the road so often (get it ?)
At ETSU, I searched for a major that wouldn't interfere with my tendency
to sleep 'til noonish or with my other hobbies (e.g., fishing, gluttony, "sampling" rot gut). I FOUND
GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY : ) Upon (somehow) finishing my B.S., I was faced with
quite a difficult dilemma: either try to get a job & start working for a living,
or conversely, go to grad school. That's how/why Bubba got his master's degree &
other graduate degrees.
I was in the doctoral program in curriculum & instruction at the University of
Tennessee for a year. I didn't like UT & it didn't like me, so when I was offered
a full teaching assistantship to come to the University of Georgia and pursue a
doctorate in social science education, I lit out for Athens, GA like a scalded
cat--er, in this case, scalded dawg. The UGA years were the happiest in Bubba's
life (sob). Kidding aside, you couldn't hope to go to a better school than good
'ole UGA. It's got something for everybody: if you really wanna learn & have
career goals, it's got a top-notch reputation for academics & it's a major
research institution; if you like sports, it's a major jock/sports school;
if you wanna goof off for several years, you can do quite a good job of
that in Athens. Athens has been the birthplace or home
of a number of celebrities including musicians REM,
John Berry, & the B-52s, as well
as actors Kim Bassinger and
Wayne Knight--aka "Newman" from Seinfeld.
BUBBA'S WRITING & OTHER PROJECTS
Over the past few years, I have made several ponderous attempts at writing/research. Any success I've experienced
is the result of luck, well placed threats, or having the goods on the editor. I've had several articles published in
professional/academic journals including: "Volunteer Teaching on the University Campus: The Need for Recognition and Further Study"
published in The Journal of Graduate Teaching Assistant Development; "Sub-Saharan Africa Resources on the Internet"
and "Liberia: America's Closest African Ally" both appearing in Social Education,
the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies. I recently finished writing several articles/entries (on
dairy cattle, beef cattle, "Union Acres", "Folkcorps", the Chattowah Open Land Trust, and the Lightstone Foundation) for The Encyclopedia of Appalachia, which will be published in 2001 by the University of Tennessee Press.
I have also presented a number of papers at regional or national geography/higher education conferences such as the Florida Association of
Geographers (Jacksonville, 1997), the Southern Regional Science Association (Savanna, GA 1998), the National Council For Geographic Education
(Indianapolis, 1998), and most recently, the International Conference on Research in Geographic Education in (Austin, TX 1999).
HOBBIES
Hmmmmmm. Let's see. I'm pretty good at napping, TV-watching & I am a connoisseur of fine vittles (grits, possum on a stick, etc). I'm also pretty good at cleaning aquatic critter droppings
out of fish tanks & pulling rather distasteful pranks in building 1.
PICTURES OF BUBBA
Just in case you need something to scare critters/varmints out of your garden, or you need some dress-up ideas for Halloween, I thought I'd throw a few pics on the webpage.
The photo above was taken at ETSU in 1993. While getting my master's degree I taught earth science/physical geography in the Dept. of Geography & Geology. I think that shirt &
tie must have been leftovers from my car salesman days.
The scoundrel on the left in this pic is Tom Green, a fellow geography professor on central campus. We were on the boat helping out with the 1999 Broward Canal Cleanup. If you know Tom, ask him what he found floating in the canal later that day (& no, it was not a critter doodle).
For the lack of any other picture to post, here's Bubba in the middle of his tidy, uncluttered office pretending to look busy. From the looks of them jowels, I should probably stop eat'n greasy lard-fried vittles. That necktie (with the word "Bulldogs" all over it) was imported all the way from Athens, Georgia----and I have a matching pair of Georgia Bulldog long-handle drawers
To see of picture of Bubba's truck, click here.
Here is my truck from high school
To go to the prom I borrowed a much newer/nicer truck from my cousin tater. Although I 'aint figured out what impresses city women yet, back home you load up a truck with hay, corn, hogs, something like that (it shows you are a properous gentleman farmer) & ride right through town & all the mountain women would go wild with admiration.
CURRICULUM VITA
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