A “Renaissance”Man

(Apologies for this post‘s length. I could not bring myself to make it serial).

After decades of reflection, I have come to believe that my dad was something of a “renaissance” man. I use quotes, because he didn’t really fit into its classical definition. Stay with me.

My paternal grandparents married in the early 20th century. They divorced, apparently three or four years later. There was not any documentation in my home—conversation or otherwise—I have yet to research it. My grandmother, “Montie” moved with two small boys to Tampa Florida, where she established a chain of beauty shops, circa 1918. From family oral tradition, I gained glimpses of the story.

While Montie ran her businesses, my dad, still a school boy, was left each morning to get his little brother ready and take him to daycare before getting himself to school, where he played trumpet. After school, he delivered Western Union telegrams on bicycle around Tampa. He attended Berry College, in Rome, Georgia Barber College in Atlanta, and Monroe A & M School in Monroe, GA where he met my mother. The school was near his father’s Gwinnett County farm. He not only worked on the school farm, to pay for school, but also on breaks helped his dad on his farm.

My dad caught a bus from Tampa to my mother’s home and convinced her to go with him to Tampa, and get married. During that year, they left Tampa for Deepstep. Sometime later, I was born. My parents lived in a house on my grandfather’s farm where my dad began to farm next to their house. Dad bought a mule, Mac, for farming; He grew corn, peanuts, cotton, and a garden. For income supplelment, my dad opened a Saturday-only barber shop in a nook inside my maternal grandfather’s general store. Thanks to barber school and work in Montie’s shops, he supplemented his meager farm income.

At the end of WW II, dormant Kaolin mines were renewed in the county. Dad laced together a job at a Kaolin mine; he bought a new Chevrolet bus chassis, (production was still recovering from WW II) and located a used truck cab, bought a new hydraulic-powered dump body and went to work hauling Kaoli—- ten miles per load to the processing plant.

Dad learned to do his own truck maintenance. He bought essential tools as needed, building up his own home repair shop, I spent many hours in, under, and around his trucks as we did maintenance and repairs—ready for the next day’s hauling. He engaged a bulk gasoline tank and bought gas and oil wholesale. My daily job was to refill his truck gas tank before bedtime.

Meanwhile, he still farmed four acres next to our house, which was across the dirt road from my grandparents (a huge bonus I will always cherish). Dad bought a John Deere B tractor for tending the acreage. I was— joyfully—tasked with driving the tractor tilling and preparing the soil for our annual crop of oats etc. We had a garden, and lived next door to my grandfather’s general store. He gave us a family discount on things we didn’t grow. Although we were four miles from a paved road, we had necessities. The War now over, products (and dad’s steady income) brought some conveniences, and he bought a chest-type freezer. Meat from the farm animals was processed and frozen. My mother “canned” fruits and vegetables.

When the Kaolin mine began streamlining its shipping—pipeline and rail–trucking declined. My dad tried a variety of door-to-door sales, and other income streams. He found a job in automobile tire recapping business which turned out to be successful . After learning the business, and making productive contacts, he built his own tire recapping shop next door to our house. Then he quit his job. His only advertising was a 4×4 ad in the county newspaper, low prices, and word-of-mouth. His business thrived. He did his own work, never hiring helpers. A few years later, Radial automobile tires killed the recapping industry. Dad closed his shop and got a night job at J. P. Stevens Woolen mill. Days he continued to tend the small farm. He kept is night job until his death.

Fitting together the jigsaw puzzle of my dad’s life, I came to see how he not only survived—through two World Wars, his parents’ divorce, traumatic early years, lsuccessfully earning a hat-full of new vocations, dramatic cultural shifts, and, through difficult times—he came out ahead. I have to say, his work-ethic now lives on in his grandchildren. Therefore, at the risk of it being a misnomer, I call my dad a Renaissance Man.