MEMORIES OF MY DADDY
Saturday, June 10, 2017
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Memories of my daddy assail me this morning, the day before “Father’s Day.”
I am blessed to have such memories, as I was to have such a father as Elvis Mitchell Coleman, a/k/a “Bo.” Daddy was a man’s man, no doubt about it.
By my mother, Margie Dean Coleman, he had eight children, starting with me. By his first wife, Inez Carter Coleman—who died giving birth—he had two older children; and in between these two wives, he had at least one outside child, older than me, whom I first met at age 35, when she hunted him (and us) down for her heredity.
This morning a memory of daddy prompted this reminiscence. We were standing in the front yard of an uncle’s property in Madison County, Mississippi, when an older woman walked up to us, smiling. Daddy also began to smile. Mama burst out laughing! I did not know what was going on. No one said anything, until mama said, “Larry, this is your daddy’s old girlfriend. They didn’t think that I knew.” No denials were forthcoming, only smiles and pleasantries. That was my daddy. This event occurred in the 1990s, since Daddy died in September 1998.
Other memories include the time in October 1969, when I lost my meal ticket at Howard in my freshman year. I called home in despair saying that I would have to come home due to its loss. My parents balked, would not hear it! Within a week, I received a registered letter notice at my dormitory, Cook Hall. When I went to the Administration Building, it contained a money order for $250.00. Tuition itself was then just $200.00 a semester at Howard University, and a monthly meal ticket was just $30! Daddy had done some construction work, on the side, to make that additional, emergency money. As the first one to go to college in our immediate family, my example was motivational to my younger siblings. I was the “lead dog,” daddy said. Thus, it was vital that we get past this “bump in the road.” And we did!
Another memory involves the July 4, 1968, Webster Groves, Missouri, Annual Parade. We lived in the Webster Groves School District near St. Louis, in Rock Hill, Missouri, at 334 Eldridge Avenue. Every year, white “south” Webster had had this big parade with floats etc. But black “north” Webster had never participated in it. In 1968, me and some school mates determined to change all of that malarkey.
Dr. King had just been killed three months earlier. So we pooled our money from our summer jobs, rented a big railed, flat-bed truck—that daddy had signed for—bought black posters (Stokely, Malcolm, King, Temptations, Supremes, etc.), streamers; got a parade permit; decorated the truck; drove around the hood picking up passengers on the morning of the Fourth; bumped into a motorcycle escort, consisting of brothers from somewhere; and headed to the parade’s staging area at our high school. When we got there, the organizers demanded to see the permit, which had been left in the hood. We left to retrieve it. When we got back, the parade had gone! We could see the end of it in the distance. We caught up to it. But the police blocked us from joining the main procession.
We were behind an old-fashioned mule-drawn fire engine pumper with a black custodian trailing and shoveling the mules’ droppings into a bucket. By this time, daddy had assumed command of the truck, our prior driver being unable to put the truck back into gear, after our stop at the rear of the parade. “We” chafed at being obstructed from joining the main body of the parade; “we” being the 20-30 brothers on the back of our truck “float” and, of course, daddy, our driver. Soon, the parade route bent onto Big Bend Blvd. at a left 90 degree angle. Daddy cut across an abandoned gas station, diagonally passing the mules and the police, on the passenger side. A cheer went up from the brothers on the truck for this short-gained victory. Suddenly, a police car dashed up to our truck and collided into our front passenger fender! Daddy braked ! Brothers started coming over the rails, vehemently demanding an explanation of such outrageous police conduct!
Long story short: No one was hurt. Daddy was later charged with reckless and imprudent driving. He was acquitted of the charges in Webster Groves’ Municipal Court. The truck was insured. Bertram Tremayne, Esq., a Webster Groves resident who later became President of the Missouri Bar in the 1980’s, represented daddy at trial, courtesy of a white physician-friend of our family also of Webster Groves.
My daddy was a man. My daddy was a man’s man, whose memory I treasure.
#30
Saturday, June 10, 2017
MEMORIES OF MY DADDY
MEMORIES OF MY DADDY
Saturday, June 10, 2017
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Memories of my daddy assail me this morning, the day before “Father’s Day.”
I am blessed to have such memories, as I was to have such a father as Elvis Mitchell Coleman, a/k/a “Bo.” Daddy was a man’s man, no doubt about it.
By my mother, Margie Dean Coleman, he had eight children, starting with me. By his first wife, Inez Carter Coleman—who died giving birth—he had two older children; and in between these two wives, he had at least one outside child, older than me, whom I first met at age 35, when she hunted him (and us) down for her heredity.
This morning a memory of daddy prompted this reminiscence. We were standing in the front yard of an uncle’s property in Madison County, Mississippi, when an older woman walked up to us, smiling. Daddy also began to smile. Mama burst out laughing! I did not know what was going on. No one said anything, until mama said, “Larry, this is your daddy’s old girlfriend. They didn’t think that I knew.” No denials were forthcoming, only smiles and pleasantries. That was my daddy. This event occurred in the 1990s, since Daddy died in September 1998.
Other memories include the time in October 1969, when I lost my meal ticket at Howard in my freshman year. I called home in despair saying that I would have to come home due to its loss. My parents balked, would not hear it! Within a week, I received a registered letter notice at my dormitory, Cook Hall. When I went to the Administration Building, it contained a money order for $250.00. Tuition itself was then just $200.00 a semester at Howard University, and a monthly meal ticket was just $30! Daddy had done some construction work, on the side, to make that additional, emergency money. As the first one to go to college in our immediate family, my example was motivational to my younger siblings. I was the “lead dog,” daddy said. Thus, it was vital that we get past this “bump in the road.” And we did!
Another memory involves the July 4, 1968, Webster Groves, Missouri, Annual Parade. We lived in the Webster Groves School District near St. Louis, in Rock Hill, Missouri, at 334 Eldridge Avenue. Every year, white “south” Webster had had this big parade with floats etc. But black “north” Webster had never participated in it. In 1968, me and some school mates determined to change all of that malarkey.
Dr. King had just been killed three months earlier. So we pooled our money from our summer jobs, rented a big railed, flat-bed truck—that daddy had signed for—bought black posters (Stokely, Malcolm, King, Temptations, Supremes, etc.), streamers; got a parade permit; decorated the truck; drove around the hood picking up passengers on the morning of the Fourth; bumped into a motorcycle escort, consisting of brothers from somewhere; and headed to the parade’s staging area at our high school. When we got there, the organizers demanded to see the permit, which had been left in the hood. We left to retrieve it. When we got back, the parade had gone! We could see the end of it in the distance. We caught up to it. But the police blocked us from joining the main procession.
We were behind an old-fashioned mule-drawn fire engine pumper with a black custodian trailing and shoveling the mules’ droppings into a bucket. By this time, daddy had assumed command of the truck, our prior driver being unable to put the truck back into gear, after our stop at the rear of the parade. “We” chafed at being obstructed from joining the main body of the parade; “we” being the 20-30 brothers on the back of our truck “float” and, of course, daddy, our driver. Soon, the parade route bent onto Big Bend Blvd. at a left 90 degree angle. Daddy cut across an abandoned gas station, diagonally passing the mules and the police, on the passenger side. A cheer went up from the brothers on the truck for this short-gained victory. Suddenly, a police car dashed up to our truck and collided into our front passenger fender! Daddy braked ! Brothers started coming over the rails, vehemently demanding an explanation of such outrageous police conduct!
Long story short: No one was hurt. Daddy was later charged with reckless and imprudent driving. He was acquitted of the charges in Webster Groves’ Municipal Court. The truck was insured. Bertram Tremayne, Esq., a Webster Groves resident who later became President of the Missouri Bar in the 1980’s, represented daddy at trial, courtesy of a white physician-friend of our family also of Webster Groves.
My daddy was a man. My daddy was a man’s man, whose memory I treasure.
#30