Life of father Part 7

My Father’s Mother, Mary Markins, was a true character of originality. It was no wonder my
Fathers antics were so animated. All one had to do is spend ten minutes with my Grandma to
understand where my Father got his energy and sense of adventure. Grandma lived to the ripe
old age of 101, finally succumbing to death due to heart failure.

Grandma lived in Huntington as well, on the far west end of the city, across town from where
we lived.
Father and I would visit with her often, usually on a Saturday afternoon when she was sure to be
at home. On any other day, she may be at the local Red Shield store, selling jars of jelly of
home made perfection, or perhaps picking apples from the apple trees that grew in the orchard
down the street. If she wasn’t at those places, you would be sure to find her on second avenue at
the local office of the Lonely Hearts Club. You see, Grandma was always looking for a new
husband.

Her first husband, my Fathers Father, joined the Army during World War I and even though he
was never shot or harmed, he never came back home. Her second husband left her for unknown
reasons after only a month of marriage. Her third and fourth husbands both passed away of
cancer at early ages and her fifth, the man I knew and called Grandpa, died in 1955 of liver
failure, due to his enormous consumption of alcohol. Grandpa was always intoxicated. He was
a conductor on the C&O railroad and had more than once fallen off the caboose while swinging
his signal lantern from the railed steps at the back of the train. Grandma was so accustomed to
him coming home drunk and passing out on the floor that when he died, she let him lay for three
days before she realized he was dead.

So now Grandma depended on the Lonely Hearts Club to meet potential husbands. The fact that
she was nearly seventy, mostly toothless, a mop of thick gray unruly hair and overweight by
forty pounds never seemed to dissuade her from writing to men half her age and inviting them to
her house for tea and conversation. She always sent them a photo taken forty years earlier, so
when they did show up, they usually ran for their lives once they met her face to face. After
several months of that, Grandma stopped sending photos, but extended her standard invitation as
always. Whenever Father and I visited, the conversation always became heated as he tried to
convince her that no young man wanted to be with her, that if she had to write to men, to write
to someone her own age. Grandma would always laugh. “What the hell do I want with another
old man anyway? They cain’t work, they cain’t dance, and they shore as hell cain’t do nothing
for me.” Father never won any arguments with her. Grandma was going to do whatever she
wanted, whenever she wanted and with whoever she wanted to do it with. Case closed.

My Grandma lived in a two family flat. She lived downstairs and her sister, Pearl, my Great
Aunt, lived upstairs. They rarely spoke to one another and if you didn’t know better, you would
think they didn’t even know each other.
Father and I would always visit Aunt Pearl whenever we went to Grandma's house. My Father,
disgusted with his attempts to try to get Grandma to stop writing young men, asked Pearl to call
him the next time a young suitor showed up at the house. Pearl was happy to do whatever she
could to burst Grandma’s bubble.

It was only a matter of days before Pearl called Dad to announce that a young man was sitting in
front of the house in a shiny red car. He had been there for several minutes and had not got out
of the car yet, so if Dad rushed, maybe he could intercept him before he turned tail to run.
Dad grabbed his keys and ran to the car. I was right behind him. I wanted to see this.

Grandma had not come out of the house, but we heard the dog barking in the back, so we
guessed that she was in the backyard. She never let the dog out unless she was with him.
Suddenly the car door opened, a tall young black man got out of the car and began walking
toward the porch. “Good afternoon to you sir, what a fine day it is. Would this happen to be
331?” Father stood up, “ It would be young man, and what a fine car you have there!” “Oh yes
sir, this here is a 1954 Buick Road master with a 322 V-8 engine, a solid Dyna-Flow
Transmission, custom made Leather Seats and a factory installed radio.....yes sir, a fine car!”

“What can I do for you young man?”
“Well sir, I have this letter here from a certain lady of color named Mary who has invited me for
tea, and I wonder sir, is she about?”
Father rolled his eyes to the heavens, knowing full well that Grandma was up to her old tricks,
only this time with a new exaggeration.

The man came closer, his face expressionless but eyes questioning.
“ I think there has been a mistake young man, there is no colored girl here. Only me and my son
Johnny here”
The man looked at his letter again, carefully reading it to himself, looking up at the house
numbers and reading it over for the second time. “Forgive me sir, but this is 331 you say and
there is no Mary here?”
Father thought for a moment, cleared his throat nervously.
“ I didn’t say there was no Mary here, I said there is no colored girl here. No, not a colored girl
anywhere around here that I know about.”

“ I see. Well sir, the Mary that wrote me this here letter, the one named Mary Markins, would
she be about sir.”
It was clear that this young man was not going to go away anytime soon. His heart was set on
meeting his Mary. Dad seemed to understand the urgency of the situation.
“Where you from young man?” Father asked, scratching his head, stalling for time to figure out
what to do.
“

I come from Cincinnati, Ohio to see Mary Markins and I shore am disappointed that I drove that Buick all morning for nothing.Father seemed flustered. He still didn’t know how to handle this awkward situation. Cincinnati huh, fine town. Been there many times. What do they call you.”
The man giggled a second or two. “ Well sir, my name be Horace, but they call me Professor.
Yeah, that's me, the Professor.” he said quite proudly.
“Are you a real professor.”
Again the young man smiled and giggled a bit. “ Well sir, if you mean did I go to school to be a
professor then no. But if you mean am I a professor of love, then yes sir, that would be me.”
My Father bristled. “Wrong answer” I thought to myself

.
“Okay, okay Professor. You drove all that way to meet Mary and meet her you will. Wait right there!”
The professor took a step back as Father hurriedly walked around the house to the back yard.
Within minutes, the front door opened and Father came out onto the porch. “I hope you have a
good sense of humor professor. You are going to need it. Come on out here Mary Markins, you
have a visitor from Cincinnati.”
Grandma came out, hair combed, a long black dress and red shoes.
Horace stared in horror!
“ Well, here she is professor, here’s your beauty queen...lovely now ain’t she?”
Poor Horace never spoke another word, He stepped backwards all the way down the walk, his
face nearly white, his jowl dropped nearly to his shirt collar.
Father and I stood frozen, never even blinking while Horace backed down the walk.
Just before he got into his Buick, he said in an angry loud voice, “ You white people is all crazy.
You some crazy motherfu.....” The door on the Buick closed, the 322 V-8 roared to life and the
full width whitewall tires spun angrily, leaving smoke and smell of burning rubber as they
gripped the brick road and quickly disappeared into the narrowness of third avenue
Grandma smiled. Father shook his head in disgust.
After a few minutes of silence, Grandma put her arm around Fathers neck and kissed him on the
cheek.
“ Come on in the house you all, lets have some tea!”