Daddy was a man to be respected and honored. He was dependable, independent, frugal, provided for his family, worked hard, built 3 homes on his own, loved my mother dearly, he was fair and objective, well read, enjoyed opera and classical music. He was a great help to my mother taking us kids for rides in the park to give her a break. He helped us with homework, was involved in our school activities including the PTA. Before we kids were born, he helped several neighbors build their homes, and worked to get electricity in our neighborhood.
He was also into health foods before most people had even heard the words, health foods. In the early 1960's he was drinking green tea, eating wheat germ and would not let us salt our food at the table and no sugar in our tea. I grew up in a Southern home where there was no sugar in our tea!! He gave us kids Vitamin C for colds and would not give us aspirin. He was a stoic man who kept his emotions in check, he was not a hugger, and didn't find worldly jokes funny.
For all the wonderful things my father did and was, I was never emotionally close to him. I was outgoing and he wasn't, I wanted to be with people and he didn't care if he was or wasn't. He was friendly in a standoffish way with co-workers and people in the community, but I never remember our family having company who were friends of my Daddy. The only real friend I knew he had was Louise Palmer, the girl in his diary. They were never lovers, but they were like brother and sister. They exchanged birthday cards for at least 70 years. When Louise married Jimmy Garrison, Daddy's grandmother, "Balm" (Georgia Etta Lentz Pike), gave Louise a wash stand she had received when she married in 1885. Louise told Balm she would keep the wash stand and be sure to return it to Joe's first child, who happened to be me! I did receive that wash stand.
Before I got to far into Daddy's diary I wanted to write what I thought about Daddy to see if reading and transcribing Daddy's diaries would give me another perspective about him.
I was so excited the day I found those composition books that Daddy used as diaries. They were nearly 80 years old. They were crumbling as I turned the pages. The string holding the books together was falling out. I decided to put each page in a sheet protector. My thoughts were to transcribe them before they faded. The diaries were written in pencil.
Two or more years have pasted by since I found the diaries. All those ideas about it being a breeze to transcribe them have gone out the window. It takes some time to transcribe them. I read the page first so that I can become familiar with what is on the page. I want to transcribe them exactly as Daddy wrote them. Of course, I'm distracted by the words themselves. Daddy told stories of his childhood and talked about the people who he wrote about in the diaries. I listened to those stories many times and never thought I would forget them. But, as I transcribe the diaries I realize that I have forgotten the details of those stories.
Then there are the references to places in Memphis. Most of them I know about, but there is one that had me stumped. This is the sentence that stumped me, "We saw Miss Cash on Speedway." What was Speedway? I checked to see if it was the name of a street. No. Perhaps it was the name of a church. No.
After the searching the Internet I've come to the conclusion that the Speedway Daddy referred to was the street East Parkway N. bounded on the north by Poplar and bounded on the south by Madison Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Between the median was a sunken garden beautifully planted with flowers.
The entry in the diary for that day showed that he and his friend Clifford had taken a walk that day after school. I think they left school (South Side High School) headed for the Speedway. The Speedway was almost 7 miles from Daddy's home and he also walked to Horn Lake Rd., which was about 4 miles from his home. That's a lot of walking! I'm searching for an address for South Side High School. I've found 3 so far and don't know which one to use.
March 27, 1930: Had Manual Training sooner because of music program. It is the last one. Mr. Mankin sent me to the store for a small lock. I did not get all of my arith. As I was coming from the store I worked the problem in my head. We sang a song that we have to sing for graduation. After school Clifford and I went walking. We saw Miss Cash on Speedway. I went to see a fire on *Horn Lake Road. Went to Louise’s and got some pie.
http://swingshiftshuffle.blogspot.com/2011/08/memphis-postcards-part-7.html
