Welcome to the Troy International Airport

For a decade I was a member of the faculty of the School of Optometry at the medical center at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. That was from 1970 to 1980. In 1976 I was selected to be the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at the School of Optometry. My primary duty was selecting students to be admitted to the entering class each year. I was also responsible for promoting careers in optometry at college campuses throughout the region. UAB had its own private airplane, and each week the Dean of Students from the School of Medicine, the Dean of Students from School of Dentistry, and I would travel to a variety of colleges throughout Alabama and the southeastern region. Those trips were very enjoyable and I looked forward to them. I have a particularly fond memory of our annual visits to Troy State University. Troy is a small rural town about 50 miles southeast of Montgomery Alabama. When we would fly into Troy, the airport there was not radio controlled. Once we landed, we would taxi along a rough concrete runway that was always overrun with weeds. As the plane approached the terminal, there was a sign we would pass that always made me laugh that said “Welcome to Troy International Airport”. The Troy campus was a place where many US army personnel would take some military coursework, and because these military personnel would travel from locations throughout the world, the airport was considered by the locals to be “international”. I remember very vividly being introduced to the president of the college on my first visit to Troy. His name was Ralph Adams. President Adams was a retired military officer. I had an image in my mind of a starchily pressed individual with a distinctly military presence. The reality was completely the opposite. I was ushered into President Adams’ office and he was sitting behind his desk with his feet up on the desk. The first thing I noticed were large holes in the soles of his shoes. He was wearing overalls and he had a significant pot belly. President Adams was extremely outgoing and very friendly. We chatted for a while and then he took me for a tour of the Troy campus in his pickup truck. I’m told that pickup truck was all the President ever drove.

 President Adams seemed to really like me. He made a point of visiting with me every year we visited the Troy campus. One year he asked me if I would sit to have my portrait made. It turns out that a retired military portrait artist was in residence on campus. He name was Woody Ishmael. Here is a photograph of that portrait:

I sat for that portrait for the better part of three hours. I was given the original but a copy of the portrait was made and was hung in the campus library. The following year on returning to Troy I went into the library and there was my photograph hanging proudly among portraits of famous military officers and important dignitaries. So far as I know, my portrait is still hanging there in the Troy library.

One year while talking with President Adams, he told me that he didn’t feel as though he was seeing very well. We made an appointment for him to come to UAB so I could examine his eyes. It turns out that he had 4 diopters of astigmatism that had never been corrected. Correcting that astigmatism resulted in about a 4-line improvement in his visual acuity. It is somewhat unusual to find that much astigmatism in an adult where the astigmatism had never before been corrected. I was expecting that it would be a difficult spectacle prescription for him to adjust to. But, I took a deep breath and ordered a full astigmatic prescription in executive bifocals (which was the style of bifocal he was used to wearing). I let him know, very carefully, that these new glasses would take some getting used to. President Adams came back a week later to pick up his new glasses. When he put them on I could tell he was not sure about them. He acted as though he was going to fall over. But he agreed to give them some time to get used to the new prescription. I got a note from President Adams about a week later letting me know that he LOVED his new glasses and was seeing better than he had ever seen before. After that, every year at Christmas time I would receive a huge bushel bag of peanuts from President Adams with a lovely Christmas card attached. This bushel of peanuts would come to the Optometry School, not to my home. All the faculty and staff expected them to arrive each year and looked forward to my receiving them with tremendous eagerness. My friendship with President Adams remains one of my fondest memories of the decade that I lived in Alabama.