My guest author today is my Daddy as he recounts a bittersweet visit he had with one man who lived in our community.
There was an old man who lived on a dirt road near Williamson. He was a househusband. His wife worked in a sewing plant in town while the husband held down the home front. This hadn’t always been the case.
At one time both of them worked and saved their money in hopes of owning a home and raising a family. They had the home, but not the money nor the children.
The gentleman, people called him “Shorty,” was working in a mill in Griffin, Georgia, when a tornado struck. The windstorm knocked out several blocks of buildings including the one that Shorty worked in. a ceiling beam crashed down on him and gashed off part of his forehead. He came close to losing his life but managed a slow recovery which left him broke and handicapped. Instead of money, they had a subsistence.
The old man loved music. One of their few luxuries was old upright piano. Shorty had stubby fingers, but it didn’t matter, when he sat down by the piano, he made that thing talk. He should have tried working as an concert pianist instead of a mill worker.
I stopped and visited him one year just before Christmas. He had something he wanted to show me. “It’s my wife’s Christmas present,” he said.
I followed him down the hall in the old house. Like many older houses in those days, the hallway ran all the way through the house and the rooms were on each side. He walked to a door in the center of the hall, “This is our bedroom,” he said. He pushed the door open. The bed was made up, and right in the center, where the two pillows came together, was a beautiful baby doll.
“It’s for my wife.” he said. “She had ten babies. None lived more than three days.”
Miss Bert was right: It takes a lifetime to learn how to live.
