My Dad was a pretty complex creature, and like everyone else he had his strong points and his faults. However, some of my Dad's strong points were super-strong. One of these wonderful traits was a determination to do what was right, as he saw the right, regardless of what anyone else might think. Not that my Dad was immune from hurt, especially when that hurt came from someone he considered a friend. But I stray from my story.

There are two episodes (and I could recount many, many more) which I believe best demonstrate my Dad's fidelity to the right (ie, justice and mercy). One I will recount briefly: When a white female civil rights activist from "up North" and a local black man were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, on the highway to Selma just before the famous march across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, my Dad read in the newspaper that the man left a wife and quite a number of children surviving him. The article went on to say that without his income the family was in dire financial straits. 

Now back then most all white Southerners were segregationists. The politically correct thing nowadays is to condemn anyone who had such thoughts as a racist bigot, but that is far from the truth. People tend to believe the way they were raised to believe, and we Southerners were raised in a society where segregation was the way life was. People didn't really think about it being any other way. And of course, when the federal government ordered that this way of life be involuntarily altered, we Southerners balked. Don't forget, we fought a war over being told what to do about a century earlier! 

My Dad was no different. He believed in segregation as the natural order of things. But my Dad was no racist and no bigot. When he read about that widow and all those children, he didn't swear that the d--n n-----s deserved what they got. NO! My Dad, to the contrary, thought about his own wife and children, and sent one hundred dollars (a very generous sum in the 1960s) to a fund set up for that family . He did it because it was the right thing to do. 

The other story is much more personal, and it concerned a one on one, man to man relationship. If you read "Shellcracker" you know something about Jesse, but you don't know the heart of the story. Before he came to work for my Dad, Jessie worked at the American filling [gas] station in Reform. Jesse had a speech problem and he could barely talk (at least in the presence of white people - I have long suspected that when among his own he could talk,  but around whites the abuse he had suffered rendered him unable to speak). The white "men" who worked at or congregated around that station found great sport in making fun of Jesse because of his inability to speak. But "poking fun" was not even the beginning of what this white trash did to Jesse: They cursed him, spit on him, kicked him, and made him get down on his knees in the grease and grime of the lift bay and beg like a dog, just for a cigarette. This abuse no doubt made his speech problem worse, to the point that he could not utter a word.

Well, my Dad witnessed this disgusting, inhumane behavior and it caused him to seethe with anger. He resolved then and there to do something about it, and what he did was offer Jesse a job as the grease monkey (now, lubrication technician) at Reform Motor Company, which my Dad owned, and which was the local small town Ford dealership in Reform, Alabama. When he came to work for my Dad Jesse could not speak a word, but my Dad continued to show him kindness and basic humanity, and Jesse, ever so slowly, began to respond. For a long, long time, all he managed to get out of his mouth were little phrases such as "Almos" and "Jus about it". One time one of Dad's white employees ridiculed Jesse in a red neck, demeaning way, like those men down at the American station, and my Dad dressed him down in the strongest of language. He made it clear to the man that if he ever did that to Jesse again, he'd be looking for a job! And if the man had been fool enough to repeat this conduct he would have found my Dad to be true to his word.

Now Jesse was a powerful man, black as black could be and with muscles bulging through his shirt. He was one of the strongest men I ever knew! And he didn't even realize how strong he was. Just about the only problem Daddy had with Jesse as an employee was this extraordinary strength of his. Jesse would change the oil filter on a car, and if the customer went elsewhere to get their oil changed the next time, the mechanic couldn't get the old filter off, Jesse had screwed it on so tight. But the worst/best thing, depending on your point of view, was his tire changing. Folks would come to the Ford Place (as we all called Reform Motor Company) and get a new set of tires, or have a flat repaired, and then, traveling down the highway, would have a flat tire. The man of the family would commence to change the tire, only to discover that he couldn't loosen the lug nuts! No Good Samaritan who happened by could get them off either, and finally, in desperation, they would call the Ford Place and Dad would have to send Jesse out there to change the flat. 

Dad would duly admonish Jesse about not tightening the lug nuts (or oil filter) too tight, and I know Jesse tried, but it was hard for him simply because he did not understand his own strength. For this reason, when I think of Jesse I often think, also, of the Biblical Samson. I have no doubt Jesse could have whipped all the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, just as Samson did. 

I can personally testify to the lug nut problem. I had an old 1960              T-bird when I was in high school, and one day I walked out to get in the car and saw that the left rear tire was flat. Naturally, I set about to change the tire. I had a good, heavy cross-arm lug wrench, the kind you don't see much anymore. Well, I tried and I tried to get those lug nuts off, to no avail. Finally, and repeatedly, I resorted to putting the wrench on a lug nut and then, holding onto the roof of the car, jumping on the left arm of the wrench. Because it would be embarrassing to admit that I couldn't remove lug nuts from a wheel, I kept on trying 'til I was absolutely exhausted and disgusted - with those lug nuts and myself. I had not managed to get a single one of them off!

Having admitted defeat, I called my Dad at the Ford Place and told him what I was experiencing. He then told me this happened fairly frequently, and sent Jesse out to change the tire. He popped those lug nuts off as easily as unscrewing a light bulb, seemingly with no effort at all!

Through the years, Jesse's speech continued to improve, such that when I came home from college one day and spoke to Jesse, we got into a real conversation, and he told me about his service in World War II, in the Army Air Corps in India! It was amazing to listen to this man make complete sentences and engage in intelligent conversation. What a great blessing and revelation for me that day was! And because of my Dad's kindness to Jesse, rescuing him from that horrible situation down at the American station, and defending him when need be, and because Jesse was so grateful to my Dad, a very special and indescribable bond developed between them. I don't think many people ever realized just how special and deep their relationship really was.

Jesse continued strong as ever until one Monday morning, when Jesse came to work "feeling poorly". Dad could tell something was wrong, and soon found out the cause of Jesse's ill health. It seems that on the previous Saturday night, at the home of the mother of Jesse's children, she and Jesse, reportedly a little intoxicated, had gotten into a bit of a fight and one of Jesse's daughters, fearing he was about to severely injure her Mama, ran him clean through with a large butcher knife! The blade entered in his lower left back and exited in front in his right abdominal area. Not knowing what to do, and being fearful of what might happen to the daughter if the law found out, they took ashes from the open fireplace and "daubed" them on the entry and exit wounds to stop the bleeding. With no further medical attention, by Monday morning Jesse, from this grievous wound (which would have killed any normal person within minutes), wasn't feeling well at all.

My Dad, on becoming aware of the gravity of Jesse's wound, cried out "My God, man, you have got to go to the hospital!", a statement which would merely have stated the obvious to anyone but Jesse, even assuming they might still be alive. So they got Jesse to the hospital, where he underwent an extensive operation to sew up all of his innards which had been pierced or severed by that big ol' butcher knife, and where he stayed, for an extended period, recuperating. Thereafter Jesse returned to his old job at Reform Motor Company, but like Samson after his locks were shorn, his immense strength was gone, never to return. Stated another way, he was now merely as strong as most other men his age. And sadly, he never fully regained his health. Nevertheless, Dad kept him on at the Ford Place. He would never have done otherwise.

In his later years, after my Dad had passed away, Jesse, being a veteran of World War II, and having become completely disabled, was admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuscaloosa. My father in law, Fred Findley, who had been the head mechanic at Reform Motor Company for virtually his entire working life (and one of the greatest mechanics ever), and who was himself a World War II veteran, and now retired, went to visit Jesse, who was confined to a wheelchair. Fred said Jesse was truly glad to see him, and very appreciative of Fred's visit. Jesse died at the VA shortly after that, having become an inextricable part of not only my Dad's life, but also mine as well.

It is this story, perhaps above all others, which truly illustrates my father's inner man - his soul. It is also a wonderful example of how God expects us to treat our fellow travelers on the road of life, and one of many lessons that helped to shape me into the man I am today.

 Copyright May 27th, 2008, by Tom Woodard

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