the first time I bit over it, and the second time I bit before
it.” (Jack’s Drive-In was open from 1950 to 1969.)
Jack left his uncle’s booming business in Vidalia to
attend Southern Pharmacy College in Atlanta. When he
applied for a job as a soda jerk at Hall Park Pharmacy, he
told the pharmacist, “a Greek fellow named Paul Theos,” he
would work a month for $25 a week, and after that if he
thought Jack’s work was worth it, he could pay him $35 a
week. “We hit it off, and I built him a good business.”
A year at pharmacy school was long enough for Jack
to know he did not want to be a pharmacist. He moved
from Atlanta to Milledgeville to attend Georgia Military
College (GMC) and began taking courses in accounting.
He graduated from GMC in 1953 and returned to UGA to
finish out his degree in accounting, but only stayed long
enough to unpack then pack up and head home again.
“I knew I couldn’t sit at a desk all day as an accountant.
I saw no reason to waste my aunt and uncle’s money for
something I didn’t want to do with my life.”
One weekend, Jack’s aunt asked him to drive her to
Atlanta to do some shopping. Although it was something
he did often, the shopping trip was a guise. His aunt had
staged a meeting between Jack and his father who was
living in a motel in Atlanta owned by his father’s sister and
her husband.
“When you don’t know your father,” said Jack, “you’re
either going to curse him or build him up. I had him built
up to be at least a gentleman of some stature. But when my
mother left him, and prohibition ended, things really went
downhill for him.”
Although his father was expecting him, Jack had no
time to prepare. When he walked into the motel room, all
his imaginings fell away in disappointment. “He was this
old sickly man that looked like he was wasting away.” It
was clear to Jack that there was no similarity between the
man he had become and the figure that looked through the
vacant eyes across the room from him. “The meeting was
over quickly, and I was gone, thankfully. I washed it from
my mind the best I could and moved on.”
In 1955, Jack was drafted into the army and was sent
to Korea as a tank driver. “By then, the fighting in Korea
was over. I spent one day as a M-48 tank driver over there,
and they put me in the finance office since I had a little
accounting experience from the college courses I’d taken at
GMC and UGA.”
By that time, his cousin Carlos had graduated from
Auburn University and served as a paratrooper ranger for
four years in the military. Along with two other friends,
Jack and Carlos started a cosmetic business they named
Lena Horne Cosmetics. “The idea was based on door-todoor
sales like Avon products,” said Jack. “Instead of a pinkbased,
our make-up was brown-based for black women. We
had two professors in Atlanta to work with us, and I moved
there to run that business.”
Jack stayed in Atlanta during the week, and drove
home every weekend. “Atlanta was not for me. I worked
hard while I was there, but when I left on Friday afternoon
until I came back on Monday morning, I liked to party with
Where PEOPLE
come FIRST,
not only in our name.
www.ourpeoplesbank.com
HOMETOWN LIVING AT I TS BEST 49
/www.ourpeoplesbank.com