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Jim Claborn is known for talking – and he did just that at a recent Rotary of Morristown meeting.

His introduction to Rotary members included a tale of intrigue of course.

His reputation as a teacher was one of strict control of his classroom, which back in the 70s include corporal punishment, or at least the appearance of such, as was revealed by a former student.

“He said, ‘I really don’t want to do this,’ then takes his shoe off and smacks the bottom of it out in the hallway. I had to walk back in there, and that was the best acting job I think I’ve had,” Rotary president Todd Quillen said. “I deserved an Academy Award.”

Quillen revealed that his brother, John, had been assigned by Claborn to build a moonshine still as a project.

“Seriously, one of my favorite teachers of all time,” Quillen said, before introducing Claborn.

Claborn said, “I appreciate you taking the risk of having me come here and talk,” before jumping right in to tell his own moonshining tale.

“I’ve got three buddies that I was stationed with in the military about 50 years ago. One of them is a chemist. We talk about Popcorn Sutton. We decided, well we’ve been to high school, we can do that. We built us a still about a year ago. He’s real ‘anal,’ he’s got to have distilled water and everything. It didn’t turn out that good. I gave some to Dennis Inman, a Federal judge; he said ‘That’s pretty good, but you know this is a felony.’ So that moonshine still is all over Jefferson County right now.”

Claborn’s discussion included a timeline with 80-year increments.

“80 Years. 1943 to now. 29,220 days – you can’t buy a new pickup for that,” he said, adding that Dollywood, where he works in human resources hires every 80-year old they can get because they have a great work ethic.

“Now, an 80-year old can’t remember World War II,” Claborn said. “They would have been two years old when it was over. They can remember GIs coming back, first black and white TVs and the first computers.”

As a comparison, Claborn said when that 80-year-old was born, an 80-year-old might have died.

“They would have been born in 1863, when the United States was split in half. In Morristown, they say there is one tree left from then, out at the Buffalo Trail Shopping Center. They cut up all the trees and the fences and barns for firewood. The Civil War was going on and a person born in 1863 couldn’t remember the War, but they could remember the soldiers who came home. In 1876, the U.S. celebrated its 100th year, Gen. Custer got himself shot and the first telephone was invented. In the 1890s, they saw the first cars that went about as fast as a riding lawnmower. Saw the first airplanes and the first World War and the Great Depression.”

In 1863, somebody that died as an 80-year-old was born in 1783.

“We had just whooped the strongest country on earth with a ragtag army, most of them weren’t even military guys,” Claborn said. “We had just become the United States. It was six years before George Washington took over as first president of the United States under the constitution.

“That person born in 1783 watched the first ships go up a creek without a paddle, the first steamboats. They saw the first instant communication with a telegraph. They saw the first photographs taken. They saw the Civil War start.

“I was 13 or 14 years old and was in the truck and Daddy said, ‘Look over there at that old man. Don’t you forget him.’ There was a heavyset fella’ with white hair sittin’ in a chair under a shade tree. He said, ‘That’s Sgt. York – Sgt. Alvin C. York.’ He was a Medal of Honor recipient in World War I. I went to see his son here a couple of years ago. He looks just like his Daddy. They live so far back in there Jamestown, he still has the dial-up telephone that his Daddy talked on.”

When he was young, Claborn worked at Sky City with John Wiley, whose father faught in the Civil War.

“John actually shed tears when he told me his Daddy was in the Confederate Army, saw a wounded Yankee soldier and gave him a drink out of his canteen.”

Before he got to know John Wiley, Claborn had Wiley’s daughter as a student when he taught Social Studies at Meadowview Middle School. He gave her a project to talk abou her grandfather and when she did, he couldn’t believe that Wiley was actually a Confederate soldier.

“Mr. Wiley waited until he could afford it to get married,” Claborn said. “He was 69 years old and had a bunch of youngins’ and John was one of them.”

A community member told Claborn he should start writing things down, which was the beginning of his Citizen Tribune “Back When” column 35 years ago. Claborn also worked with Bill Landry, host of The Heartland Series for 25 years. In addition to teaching, he spent 20 years in the Tennessee Army National Guard, after serving in the U.S. Army.

“That was a thousand stories ago and a couple of books,” he said. “It was the best job I’ve ever had. I enjoy talking to young folks and old folks.”

One of the early stories Claborn worked on was with Earl Horner, WWI combat veteran, who had maintained a keen sense of humor.

“I asked him, ‘What was it like going over there to France on a ship and gettin’ in that War?’” Claborn said. “Now that war was terrible. It was just an absolute field of murder. Some units in World War I lost over 100 percent casualties. Now how is that possible? They put a company, 200 guys, in a ditch. The sergeant would blow a whistle and they’d run out of the ditch, across barbed wire, 1800s style, and into machine gun fire, run into poisonous gas, run into airplanes, run into artillery. 30 of them would come back. Then they would put draftees in the ditch and blow the whistle. You never hear about that war, because 20 years later, World War II started.

“Earl said, ‘When we got over to France, they put us inside a barbed wire fence.’ I’ll never forget him saying that. I said Earl, you was over there to save France. Why did they put you a barbed wire fence for? Earl said, ‘Well, Jim, all the French guys had been killed and those French girls was desperate.’”

Red Wilson was a World War II Marine veteran stationed at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. He thought it was just cannon fire practice at first.

“Red run out, had his skivvies on, throwed on his boots without tying them and run out to the machine gun bunker. And people was already hiding in it, so he started throwing people out and the last person was a young nurse that hadn’t had time to get all her clothing on. And he said, ‘I could see the pilot’s face in the cockpit.’”

One of Claborn’s friends had a metal detector and would search Civil War sites. He found a bayonet that he described as ruined and tossed it aside. Claborn picked it up and kept it. He brought it with him to the Rotary meeting.

“I put 24 years in the military. You’ve got to know a little stuff,” Claborn said. “When the battle’s over, you’ve got to take care of the ones that didn’t make it. So the privates had the job of dragging people off the battle field and bury them. What they’d do is they’d take their bayonet and get the tip of it orange hot in the fire and take it over their gun barrel and beat on it and then put it in water to quench it, make it harden – and use it to drag bodies off the battlefield. So he threw away something that probably had more story to it than a bayonet.”

A recent Back When article featured Carroll Lane, 98 years old.

“He’s got a head of hair, still built solid, mows his own yard. He was in the Pacific in World War II,” Claborn said. “He shot down a Japanese plane, had three people in it. Two of them drowned and they managed to pull the other one onto the ship.”

Lane told Claborn the sailors would take dollar bills to the holding cell and ask the Japanese prisoner to sign dollar bills so they could bring them back to the states as suveneirs. Upon returning to California, they found someone who could translate and found out the signature actually said “Help me.”