Jerry the Barber

Jerry the barber is one of the friendliest men in Palatka.  He was my dad's barber, and Daddy always enjoyed the culture of the barbershop and the sometimes playful conversation there. 

Before and still after Daddy's passing, when I was home on leave from the Air Force, I would take my two boys with me to have Jerry cut our hair.  Jerry was always interested to know where I was then stationed and if I had been recently promoted.  I thought it remarkable that in spite of the months or years since my last visit to the barbershop, he always recognized me and seemed interested in my military career.

Jerry stuttered, but nobody was bothered by it.  What he had to say was worth waiting for, and people in Palatka tend not to be in a hurry anyway.

One Saturday, Daddy was in Jerry's chair, and they were commenting about some man in town whose behavior they found odd.

Daddy observed, "Well, we all have our peculiarities—except me and you," then quickly adding with a smile, "and sometimes I wonder about you!"

Jerry came back, as quickly as he could in his way, "N-now, HD [Daddy went by his initials], y-you're taking advantage o-of a stuttering man! I-I was g-gonna say that a-about you!"

Is That Boy Green?

My dad loved to have fun. He loved pulling pranks and especially liked hiding and scaring people. I don't think he did that stuff very often when he was at work, but an account of when he once did has become a family favorite.

He usually worked alone when he was out selling insurance and collecting premiums, but occasionally he had another agent with him. On a day when he was out with a wingman he decided to have some fun with one of his customers.

It was during one of his collection stops that this exchange began:

"I appreciate you paying your premiums on time each week, Mrs. Green, and I thank you for your business. Do you have any other insurance needs?"

"No, Mr. DeLoach, I think you have everybody in the house insured."

"What about that dog right there?"

"Are you serious? You insure dogs too?"

"Sure. Let's go sit down, and I'll fill out the application."

"OK."

"Has he ever had heart trouble, liver trouble, kidney trouble, high blood, low blood, the dropsy, or the fits?"

"No."

Daddy's partner had been doing fairly well keeping his composure until this point, but now he had to excuse himself to go back outside.

"Does he chase cars?"

"No, he just lays right there on the porch."

"And what's his name?"

"Boy."

"Is that Boy Green?"

"Well, we got him from Mr. Williams down the street, so I guess it's Boy Williams."

A Matter of Perspective

If you've ever been downwind of a pulp and paper mill you know it has a characteristic smell and not a pleasant one.  They use some pretty harsh chemicals to break down the wood into fibers that can be made into paper, and those chemicals have a distinctive "bouquet".

My hometown, Palatka, Florida, has just such a mill, and it has for many years been the largest private employer in the area.  With increasing automation, the number of employees at the mill has declined steadily. While the mill is very important economically in the community today, it was even more so when I was a kid back in the 1960s and early 70s.  

Many of my relatives have supported their families by working at the mill over the years, and some still do.  My dad never worked at the mill, but he put food on our table by selling insurance to many of those who did (see Some of This Might Be True: Inanimate Objects Are Our Real Enemies).

Daddy was going to drive me to school one foggy morning, and as we walked out the front door to the car, the odor of the mill hung in the air like the fog.  The brightest thing I could think to say at that moment was, "Peee-yeww!"  Daddy stopped, drew in a deep breath through his nose, and smilling as he resumed his walk to the car said, "Smells like bread and butter to me."

I have never forgotten that lesson.

Inanimate Objects Are Our Real Enemies

My dad was an insurance agent. He wasn't the kind that sat in an office; he went out and beat the bushes.

I don't know if anybody sells insurance now like he did then, but he used to go to people's homes and convince them that they needed life insurance. And what seems even more odd now, he didn't wait in his office for the premium checks to arrive; he went out and collected the premiums each week from his customers, usually in cash.

As I write this it occurs to me that some gentle readers may be thinking, "Are you sure he wasn't in the mob?" I'm sure. The first ten years of his insurance career he spent with Life of Georgia. The last twenty-five, he worked for National Standard Life Insurance Company, and its home office was in Orlando. Sometimes he called it Nasty Standard, but probably not around the home office in Orlando.

His routine was the same every week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he was out selling and collecting, usually until well after dark. Thursday morning was the last of the selling and collecting for the week, and that afternoon and late into the night he worked on his weekly report. Friday all the men went to a district meeting in Daytona.

Working on the report involved, among other things, sitting for hours at the dining room table with an adding machine adding up what he had and what he was supposed to have. Sighs of exasperation and muttering were common. The adding machine was one of those old mechanical types with an impressive array of keys, and it required you to pull the crank on the side after each entry. With each pull the adding machine went "ka-chunk, ka-chunk", and the wooden dining chair went "creak."

Daddy was a big man. I don't know that he ever weighed less than 250 pounds while I was a kid. That wooden chair had assuredly been earning its keep, but its "creak" was no idle threat. After one particularly vigorous pull, the chair could bear no more, and it all came down with Daddy on top of it. He leapt to his feet in the way that a large man can and began stomping on the remains of the chair, reducing it to even smaller splinters.

Now you may think this was simple rage at and vengeance upon a piece of furniture that had collapsed under him. Rage was no doubt a component of the display, but I know there was a deeper meaning and purpose. That stomping was also for the benefit of those other chairs sitting around the table. One of them would soon be pressed into service, and he wanted them all to see that no repeat performance of the first chair's failure would be tolerated.

I don't know whether the adding machine was paying attention.

A Quick Wit

I am a fan of Cyrano de Begerac. I saw the 1950 version of the movie for the first time in 1996, and I was hooked. Jose Ferrer's performance in the title role was certainly worthy of the Best Actor Oscar he received.

It was the mastery of language and quick wit of Cyrano that made him so appealing to me. True wit is a fairly rare capacity, and I value it when I find it. As Sacha Guitry said, "You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty."

Anyway, I thought it would be good for my children to see the movie, but when they found out it was black and white they refused--all four of them. I offered a dollar to any who would watch it with me; still no takers.

In the spring of 1996 my parents were visiting us at our home in Dayton, Ohio. I had taken some leave from work to be with them, and one morning with the kids at school I suggested to my dad that we could watch Cyrano de Begerac. He had never seen it, and furthermore, he didn't hold the mistaken notion that a movie couldn't possibly be good in black and white.

We settled into the couch to watch it and were about 30 minutes into the movie when my son, Jansen, arrived home from his college class. He stood in the doorway as he figured out what we were watching, and said, "So, Grandpa, I see Dad roped you into watching Cyrano de Bergerac with him. Did he pay you a dollar?"

Ever the quick wit, Daddy shot back, "You should have held out for more. He paid me two!"

My Favorite Whipping

One of my more memorable whippings as a boy was when I was about ten or eleven. My dad and I were in the front yard headed to the car one sunny Florida day when he came to the knowledge that I had violated one rule or another. 

We prepared for the peculiar father-son dance that was much more common in those days. My preparation required no real effort and consisted only of mounting dread.  Daddy prepared by unbuckling his belt, sliding it from around his waist in one smooth motion, doubling it over, and taking me by the left arm.

The counterclockwise dance began with Daddy providing the beat while I sang the music. The whipping soon became my favorite when our dog, Skipper, arrived on the scene and started biting at Daddy's legs. I stopped being the focus of attention as Daddy attended to the dog.

After a couple of swings at Skipper, the dog retreated.  I suspect Daddy was at least a little amused at the turn of events, and that was the end of the affair.

I wasn't sure that day if my father loved me, but I knew my dog did.