Friday, February 17, 2017

NO CHARGE . . .







           Some things are much more than they initially appear. . . like this simple orange dry cleaning ticket.
I came across it recently when rummaging through family "artifacts".  It has become a treasure of sorts, pointing to relationships that were strong and consequently  stabilizing factors in my youth.

     In the early 1950's, my dad and uncle co-owned the dry cleaning plant in the (then) small North Carolina town of Apex.  G.C. Cooper was their father-in-law.  He died in April 1951, approximately two months after the date on the ticket.
I earlier wrote something of my memories of him and my grand-mother in a post, Worth a Thousand Words.  Here I reflect, rather, on the in-law dimension between them and my dad.

     The "N.C." in dad's unmistakeable script, of course, meant "No Charge" and that kind of  generosity was indicative of the warmth and  love of their relationship.  Dad and their daughter had been married almost 18 years at the time of my grand-parents' deaths, but weeks apart.  I was but 13 years old when they died but I had been able to take some measure of their depth and character. I do not know how far they progressed in their formal education; I do know by recollection and family lore that they possessed a generous allotment of wisdom.  

    As frequently happened with young couples of their generation, my parents eloped to a neighboring state.  Upon their return to mom's parents' house, dad asked timidly, "should I run?". To that , his new father-in-law replied, "I think you have run enough already."  When I made my appearance about  five years later in another state, mom in her correspondence with her parents extolled the beauty of her first-born. She and dad returned to North Carolina a month or so later and upon  seeing me for the first time, grand-pa teasingly told mom "Every crow thinks hers is the blackest", which much later I learned is a paraphrase of a Talmudic proverb. Dad acknowledged that as a young man, his temper sometimes prompted his using colorful word choices, until one day, grand-pa simply said, "Frank, you are too intelligent to have to resort to using those words."

     Speed (his nickname because of his slow locomotion) read widely.  As a child, I remember mom's having a copy of Les Miserables that she had received from her father.  Mom read widely despite having but attended but seven years of public school.  She was very proud of her GED, earned after her three sons were adults. My parents' love of reading was passed on to their children and now the grand-children continue the tradition.

     In the early years of marriage, dad worked in the village cotton mill, as did his mother-in-law.  Many times, he recalled, she would come by his machine and have him share a soft drink break. Three times weekly for eight to ten years, one of dad's dry cleaning routes included the small mill town where my grand-parents lived.  Often, he (and I when I rode with him in summers) would be invited to have lunch (or as it was called at that time and place Dinner.  The evening meal was Supper.) My grand-ma was a cook extraordinaire.  Memories of her chess pie remain vivid.  Never did dad charge them for their dry cleaning.

   On re-reading those last sentences, I do not mean to give the implication that theirs was a kind of financial quid pro quo... quite the opposite was the case. Cost and indebtedness were never features of the relationship.

    In her early 60's, my grand-mother had cancer. Long-term care facilities were not commonplace and even if they had been, I doubt that their children would have consented to their living in one.  Rather, her children cared for them on a rotating basis ---in their own homeplace and in the siblings' respective residences.  So it was that in 1950, my grand-parents came to live with us for an extended time.  During that time, she taught me  the hand alphabet for hearing impaired persons, some of which I still remember.  My youngest brother has sketchy memories of grand-pa's taking him along on his regular visits to Mr. Levy Pendergrass's store during that time.




                  Grand-pa Cooper with two of his sons-in-law . . .
              Wade Baker (center rear) and Dad and two grand-sons.
              (pre-1948 . . . because "Baby Brother" not yet born)

      While dad inscribed "N.C." on the ticket, the memories are Priceless.


My Cooper grand-parents



Satchel




1 comment:

  1. Excellent commentary Ron....I had similar experiences in remembering my grandparents and those thoughts are worth more than gold. Bill Moore

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