Favorite child
My father had a wicked sense of humor. Actually wicked. He would say things like "You know, my favorite child would get me another piece of that chicken," leaving it up to us to decide who wanted to be his favorite child for the rest of supper.
In truth, he only had one favorite child. They would sneak out together and get ice cream, leaving the rest of us to our comic books and WZZQ. There were advantages to being the baby girl in a house full of stinky boys. We didn't actually care. There was ice cream at home and Daddy never understood the importance of keeping Mole Man from teaming up with Magneto, or the joy of a new Edgar Winter album.
My mother had a wicked sense of humor perfectly aligned with his. Most often, the subject of their humor was each other, but it obscured a deeper truth. You'd think they were bickering and tired of each other, but they were matched in junior high school and remained like interlocking doves the rest of their lives, even though she lived almost twenty years without him.
Considered a beauty at Central High School, my mother had other suitors including Stuart Irby who was persistent, but unsuccessful. One year he took a job playing Santa at Kennington’s downtown. When my mother sat for her photo with Santa, he said “now about that date…” causing every teenager in the store to laugh. My father was down the street, working for his uncle, trying to keep up with the traffic at the Office Supply Company Book Department.
It's a good thing Mr Irby didn't make time with my mother because he did find the love of his life, and it was a romance for the ages. When Jackson began to abandon downtown, he bought a lot of the old buildings, including The Office Supply Company, and made enormous studio places where his life’s love could make music and dance while Alzheimer's took her mind. I dont know which is more of a heart break, the sudden loss of your life's love, or the agonizingly slow deterioration of them.
The truth of my parents passion was found in the things they endured together. Like me, my father struggled to show any passion. As some of you can attest, I can only really do it with my letters, and not always then. In college, a lesbian friend said,
“I see how you look at her.”
“Does she?”
“I don't think she can.”
“Let's leave it that way, shall we?”
My father had a way of looking at my mother that betrayed everything. I don't think he was aware of it, but she was. Posting a photo on Facebook of when I was fourteen, a friend said “look at how he's looking at her.” His eyes betrayed him. A man can't completely hide his heart.
My father's sense of humor came from his father. I've written of his antics before. They sound like stories, but they're real. My grandmother, as far as I could tell, had no sense of humor. I'm not sure how she survived without it. Marrying a promising young boy from Millsaps, she had a life long sense of decorum and social responsibility, but no sense of humor. She had a deep abiding love for painting and sought to establish an art museum in Jackson for forty years. I think she'd be very pleased with what we have now. I'd be terrified to show her my paintings, even with her being dead and all. I knew she loved me, but showing emotion was for Vulcans.
My grandfather, and his co-conspirators Orrin Swayze and Carter O’ferral decided that, in Jackson, the Rotarians and the Free Masons were just too dull, so they created the Jackson Club, that met on the top floor of the Walthal Hotel on Capitol Street. Their purpose was to discuss current events, mainly sports, and tell jokes, mostly at each other's expense. When it came time to start inviting second generation boys into the Jackson Club, one of their first inductees was Stuart Irby, who fit right in.
My father wasnt much of a luncheon club kinda guy. There was too much work to be done. While he was in the Jackson Club, I don't think he ever went. Same with the Country Club. It's not that he didn't enjoy joking with his friends, he just preferred a smaller group. Fetching ice and booze for his inner circle of Rowan Taylor, Charlie Deaton, Robert Wingate, and sometimes Warren Hood was a lesson in dirty jokes. Warren Hood's closest confidant was probably John Stockett who was at least fifteen years older. Both of them considered themselves country boys trapped in the city. They probably were.
Before the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, there was the Jackson Touchdown club. They inducted my grandfather, not because of his football career at Millsaps, even though he had a basketball scholarship that he never played after his freshman year, but because of the many years he served as a referee in the SEC. One year, a boy from LSU didn't stop when the whistle blew and broke Granddaddy’s back. A doctor fuzed three of his vertebrae so that he walked listing to one side with a cane, but continued as a line judge for the SEC.
My father was inducted, not because of anything he did in sports at either Ole Miss or Millsaps, but because Jim Campbell conquers the world. He also made friends with a sports reporter named Michael Rubenstein who had plans for the Jackson Touchdown Club. I attended one of their last dinners before becoming the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
When you get old, you start to see your parents as humans in ways you never could when your life depended on them. Unlike my father, I never found the great love of my life, or maybe I did, but never mentioned it because she was so beautiful and I was so ugly. I did meet a lot of women who I came to regard as a privilege to have spent time with and shared adventures with. While they were all remarkable, two of them ended in unspeakable tragedy. Whether that was my fault or not will always remain a question. There was always more that I could have done.
Finding the humor is life is the key to life. I learned this from my grandfather and my father. Everything else is just a matter of perspective.
One day, I may write of my adventures with Stuart Irby and the tragedy of his first born. Maybe not. While I think his story should be told. I don't know if I can bear it.