That person got 'way more than he asked for: when he was inquiring what my dad did for a living, and I started talking about personal history and reminiscing about family, I could have told much more than I did - which was probably a whole lot more than he wanted to know. I should have given him my brother's phone number: he is the one with stories to tell of working in the gin when he was a teenager, after school and on weekend's with Sonny.
One of the things I remember most clearly is going with my mom to take meals across town to my dad when he was so overloaded with work he could not leave long enough to come home and eat. This is long before the advent of what is commonly known as 'fast food'. And my dad would have wanted something far more substantial than a greasy sandwich and fries. Plus: we were not a family that routinely ate away from home, other than the occasional meal at grandparents, which would be holidays at one set of grandparents or the other, or on a special occasion.
My mom would cook a full meal - the kind I grew up eating. The things my dad liked and she prepared as 'traditional southern fare'. Meatloaf, potatoes or rice, vegetables. Or porkchops, with rice and gravy, plus a veggie or two. Or roast beef cooked with vegetables, served over rice with gravy. Lots of starchy-type foods: potatoes, rice, breads, corn on the cob, fried cornbread (oh, my goodness!), creamed corn, butter peas, probably all things my dad grew up eating at his mother's table. I think his mom had a cook in the kitchen doing the actual work - with the lady of the house supervising, telling the cook what and how and when.
So here's this hot meal, served in the middle of the day. And my dad not able tocome and eat it. My mom would dish it up on a plate, cover it with waxed paper (all that was available at the time! no one had even heard of space-age plastic wrap) that of course, would not stay where you wanted it. And cover that with a clean dish towel. Put the plate full of food ,along with knife, fork, spoon and paper napkin (gotta 'set' the table right!) on a tray. Pour a big glass of sweetened ice tea. And expect me to balance it on my lap all the way across town to take my dad his lunch.
It was not more than three miles, but none-the-less, quite a balancing act. During the hot blistering summer, no air-conditioned houses or vehicles. So the car windows are open, with a good breeze blowing in, trying to uncover the plate full of food, and making that giant glass of tea sweat in my hand. One hand holding the tray, with a thumb on the edge of the plate, the other trying to keep the tea glass steady - and we're off!
We arrived at the little office of the cotton gin, a wee building about ten feet square, with a windows on all four sides, and a screened door that never failed to slam! shut. We would take the lunch delivery in the office, and he would sit at a little desk and eat. Or we would just leave it, for him to eat when he had time, the current mechanical crisis resolved. And dishes would likely sit there until the next meal delivery the following day.
He most often used a chest high desk that ran along one interior wall of the little building, not uncommon in that era when so much business was transacted standing up, and on the go. He did all his typing, figuring, writing standing there at that desk, with cabinet doors under the top for storing business materials.. But he would usually sit, and rest his weary bones long enough to eat the meal my mom had prepared.There was a wooden bench along the inside wall adjacent to the door, and another bench, under a shade tree, with the outside wall for a backrest, used by farmers awaiting their turn at the gin to sit.
The only real memory I have of my granddad Randall is a sort of 'snapshot' image, with him sitting on that bench, under that tree, stuffing tobacco in his pipe. The tobacco came out of a can that was labeled 'half and half', divided diagonally, with half the can painted green, and the other white. He wore eye glasses, nearly bald-headed with just a grey fringe around the sides and back. He was smiling, with eyes twinkling: a big man to my recollection as a small child, but merry..
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