“For He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways.”
— Psalm 91:11
Playing music never brought fame and fortune to Charles Edward Burris, but it gave him something money can’t buy — a ticket off the frontlines of Vietnam, the love of his life and a loving family.
The Enterprise-Journal’s Father of the Year, Burris was born July 30, 1948, in Magnolia to John and Velma Burris. He graduated from Eva Gordon Attendance Center in 1967 and moved to Chicago, where he went to work for the Joe Lowe Consolidated Food Co.
“We made popsicles, donuts, strawberry preserves — any kind of sweets,” he said.
He worked there and played drums in local blues clubs until 1969, when he was drafted into the Army and sent to Fort Polk, La., where he trained to deliver food to frontline soldiers in Vietnam.
“When the orders came down, they said I was going to Germany. I was supposed to stay over there for two or three months and then I was supposed to go to Vietnam,” he said.
While the Army needed soldiers for the war, it turns out it had also had a shortage of drummers, and Burris received new — and safer — orders, playing for the 8th Infantry Band.
“There were 42 of us,” he said. “Orchestral, blues, jazz, Tennessee Waltz — you name it, we played it.”
The experience took him all over the world.
“Whatever country you can think about overseas, I’ve been to it,” he said. “Luxembourg; Paris, France; Spain; Denmark; Sweden. You name the country, I’ve been to it.”
He was glad to get the assignment.
“That kept me from serving on the front lines of Vietnam,” he said.
Throughout his service, Burris never saw combat, but he heard it. “The closest I’ve been to combat was the Czech border — Russians 40 miles away,” he said. “That’s where them guns would shoot all night long.”
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After the military, Burris was still playing music, and one day he was walking along Elmwood Street in McComb with a friend and saw Shirley Ann Allen sitting on a porch. He invited her to his concert the next Friday night, and she showed up. Burris went on to marry her and raise five children together — Violet, Charles Jr., Rhonda, Romalice and Sheena.
He and Shirley married and moved into the White Acres housing projects in McComb. His family bounced around public housing from White Acres to Algiers for years, and Burris had a laser focus on moving his family into a house they could call their own.
He had learned how to repair televisions at Hinds Community College and went to work for Fuller Electronics. After hours, he had a side business.
“We would go out and pick up different TVs and stereos and things and we would repair them,” he said.
“We used to make home visits,” Romalice said.
TVs back then were bulkier but simpler and easier to fix than today’s models, Burris said.
“If the picture tube was weak, I could rejuvenate it and put five more years on it,” he said.
He could even fix a “dead man” — a TV with no sound, color or backlighting.
“Sometimes we’d find a roach in the TV ate the wires. We’d get it off, connect the wires. That’ll be $50,” he said.
He had to bring a lot of the work home, which resulted in a large collection of TVs due to nonpayment from customers.
“‘I’ll see you on the third.’ The third never came,” he said. “I had to sell all of those TVs because they never came back to get them.”
Burris eventually got a VA home loan in 1984 and bought a house on North Magnolia Street.
“It seemed like a big burden, a big weight had been lifted off of me,” he said of moving from the projects and into his own home.
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Burris has always been the spiritual rock for his family, leading a daily Bible study and adopting Psalm 91:11 as the family Scripture.
“We were praying every day when we were in Algiers and White Acres. We had family Bible study,” he said. “When I would get real stressed, sometimes it would be two and three times a day.”
The family became tight-knit, and the kids did everything together.
“We kept to ourselves. When we went outside and played, Mom and Dad went with us,” Charles Jr. said.
“And they’re still like that,” Romalice’s wife Pamela said. “I have a huge family, but when I met this family, I couldn’t believe how close-knit they are.”
When hearing good news, they adopted an official family applause — clap-clap-clap clap-clap.
Pamela said she soon became a close member of the family.
“He is my dad,” she said of Burris. “I didn’t have my dad, but I treat him like a father.”
She said Burris also raised his sons to treat women with respect, and people — particularly women — look at her and Romalice in awe when they see him opening her car door.
“We had a great example growing up, in both parents,” Charles Jr. said.
“Dad kept us from having an impoverished mindset,” Romalice said. “There’s a difference in being poor and being impoverished. We felt wealthy, even though we might not have had a lot of money. We had a lot of spiritual resources. It was better than money, growing up in a two-parent household. It was more than money for me.”
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Like most families, the Burrises have seen sadness, but their faith has never wavered.
Shirley was diagnosed with cancer and lost her battle in 2005.
Two years later, Burris was diagnosed with prostate cancer. After watching what she went through, he couldn’t handle the idea of a similar fate.
“When the doctors told me I had prostate cancer, I said, ‘Man, you ain’t talking to me. I don’t receive that,’” he said.
He literally refused to take the news lying down. He got out of bed every day, even when it hurt, and found something to do — helping someone, helping out at the church or doing something around the house.
“I looked cancer in the face. I said, ‘Nope, I’m not going to pet no cancer up. I’m going to keep going,’” Burris said. “Just like a crazy man — never home — I always kept going.”
Through his battle, at least two of his children were by his side at a time for radiation treatments. Burris went into remission the same year he was diagnosed and has been in remission ever since.
“Y’all been good to me, too,” he told his children. “That’s how I am as well as I am. Man, I couldn’t have done it without y’all.”
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Now retired, Burris continues to enjoy the love and company of his family. A yard sign in front of his house celebrates the recent graduation of his granddaughter, and party decorations marking the occasion hang from the ceiling in his living room. He has 12 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
Burris said the best advice he can give to husbands and fathers is to “always turn to God because you’re not going to be able to handle nothing by yourself. When you crank your car up, you don’t know if you’re going to make it home or not. And anything that happens is all up to Him.
“I can’t help to give God praise. Sometimes, I shed a tear when I see how good He’s been to me.”
