Ralph Carroll

Ralph was retired from M and H Valve Co. of Anniston, Alabama.Ralph enlisted in the U S Air Force during the Korean Conflict when he was only 17 years old. His first assignment was at Roswell, New Mexico then it was on to Nome, Alaska to finish his four year tour. He was a refrigeration technician.

After I was discharged from the U S Army in 1956 Ralph was enrolled in Refrigeration class at Anniston High School. I also signed on under the G I Bill. I will never forget how Ralph taught me to charge a refrigerator with Freon. He said “don’t be afraid of this stuff, just think of it as water”. That worked for me as I was a little timid at first; thinking of it as water brought it down to size.

Ralph was a family first kind of man, he took care of his family. He liked to tell funny stuff; sometimes I wished he would forget some of that funny stuff but he never did. If you did something he thought was funny he would tell it every chance he had... forever.

In the early 1960's Ed Carroll was working in L A, California in a factory where they printed silk screen products and was a supervisor on the evening shift. He hired Ralph Carroll to paint Murals on huge sheets of fiber board and would caution Ralph to be careful as the boards were heavy. Ralph laughed about Ed telling him be careful because the board would cut off his toe if he dropped it.

One day Ralph saw Ed coming down the isle hopping on one foot and bleeding from the other. "Ralph I cut my doggone toe off" he yelled!

If you knew Ralph casually you may be thinking that he may be a little irresponsible…far from it! Back during the boat building days around Anniston, Alabama. Ralph contracted the painting for Baxter Boats INC. Ralph hired me as a painter, that is when I found out how strictly business he was. When he opened the door to the shop in the morning he left all nonsense at the door; for the next eight hours he was completely serious. Ralph was a good painter as well as an administrator. He taught us how to paint, and how to sand. When you thought you had sanded a boat well enough he would show where you had not even begun. He taught us about cloudy day painting, how to heat our varnish when to use fish eye eliminator and things like preventing orange peel.

We worked hard in Ralph’s shop but we were proud of our boats when they were ready to ship.

When I was discharged from the army I came home with a bad habit of cursing. One day when we were working in Ralph's shop he told me that I needed to slack up on the cursing. I replied that I didn't realize I was cursing too much. He then ask me why I didn't do it in the presence of mother? That is why I started working on toning my bad language down a little; it took a while but eventually I had my bad habit under control.