The 
ight House
About Me (1958-1967)
About Me • 1968-1977 • 1978-1987 • 1988-1997 • 1998-Present • Testimony
I was born on March 28, 1958 in Kingsport Tennessee to the parents of Carl Lee Light, Sr. and Bertie Faye Light (Carver). My Dad was an auto mechanic and my mom was a housewife. In 1960 when I was two years old, we moved to Chicago, IL. We moved to Chicago because my Dad could find a higher wage job there. The plan was to stay
just a few years and save all the money they could then come back to Tennessee with the money to make a new start. Dad did find a higher paying job. He was soon made driveway manager on the grave yard shift at the second largest service station in America. My first memory was of living in Chicago. Since the whole purpose for going up there was to earn and save money, Dad worked all the over time he could, and they gave him plenty. He worked one stretch in particular of sixteen hours a day, seven days a week without an off day. We moved back to Tennessee in 1964 in time for me to begin school (Mom was very much against me attending school in Chicago).
I began first grade at James Madison Elementary school in the fall of 1964. School was about 3/4 of a mile from home. Since Mom did not drive at the time, she would walk me to school. Mom became pregnant and gave birth to a girl on March 21, 1965. They named her Tina Louise. Unfortunately, Tina did not survive but a few minutes after birth. Mom had her at six months and she only weighed 1 1/2 pounds. Her lungs were too small to function properly. Two months after loosing a child at birth, Mom lost her Dad to a heart attack in May. This was a hard time for Mom.
Dad had taken some of the money saved from working in Chicago and used it to open a restaurant. He took it over from his aunt who had not been able to make it work. I'm not sure how the business arrangement worked, but evidently Dad did not own the business completely nor did he have complete control, because when Mom and Dad had built up the business, his Aunt wanted the business back and Mom and Dad let her have it. The restaurant soon lost business again and she lost it. Almost immediately after giving up the restaurant, Mom and Dad opened a coal yard, where they delivered coal to people's homes. This was a good business at that time when burning coal was still a common heating method in this area. It was however as you may expect, very seasonal. By the spring of 1966, they got out of the coal business.
Dad got a job as a time keeper/clerk for a construction company in North Carolina. He worked in North Carolina during the week and came home on the weekends. Later he found a local job doing the same type of work. Dad was good at this doing this type of work, but he did not enjoy it. He liked being out doors. When he was offered a job of managing a service station he accepted and so in 1967 he became manager of Robert Rogers Shell Station in Kingsport. Mom became pregnant around this time. In 1966 or perhaps early 1967 I was struck by a car while walking home from school. My injuries appeared to be minor, but it lead to back problems which I still have today. I missed two weeks of school.
