A Christmas Carol

My father was in the real estate business and used to own some rental houses. One was not far from his office on South Cobb Drive in Smyrna, just in back of it, in fact. He used to tell me how much trouble rental houses were and how it really was not worth the effort or headaches. You never got the rent, at least not on time; the tenants tore the houses up; they would move out without letting you know; and the houses were vandalized when vacant. You did not want to own rental houses.

One time, a few days before Christmas in 1972, while sitting in his office talking about this subject, he relayed to me a story about this particular rental house behind his office.

It was a few days before Christmas in 1956, and the weather had been particularly cold. It was after lunch and Dad was behind his desk with his feet propped up, just about to take a nap, when he looked up and saw a skinny little boy standing in the doorway looking very afraid and intimidated. You see, my father was a very big man, and although he was famous for his smile and good nature, it was only natural, from size alone, at least to the little boy, that he would intimidate the child. Not only that, but the reason the boy was there was another reason, at least in the child’s mind, to be afraid.

The boy’s family was one of Dad’s tenants, and they were behind in their rent for a couple of months.

The little boy surprised my father, not only by standing in the doorway unannounced, but also by his condition. More specifically his manner of dress, actually the lack thereof. The first thing that caught Dad’s eye was that the boy was barefoot, wearing a ragged pair of jeans and an old T-shirt a couple of sizes too large. He had grasped in one fist a twenty-dollar bill. Dad did not immediately realize who the boy was, and asked, in his deep voice, if he could help him.

The little boy immediately rattled off in a scared voice that his mother had sent him to give Mr. Reed this twenty dollar bill as part payment on the rent that was past due. The little boy’s cheeks were beet red from the cold, as were his feet, and he was still shivering even though he was inside the warm office. Dad looked the boy over from head to toe (literally) and got up from his chair and walked around his desk and over to the boy.

Dad told me that the only thing he could think of at that moment was the fact that he had a son at home (me) not much older than this boy, and here it was freezing weather, and what kind of mother would let her child go out dressed in such a manner. That would never be allowed at our house. He was mad. He walked across the office to the boy standing in the doorway, who was holding out his hand with the twenty-dollar bill in it. Dad reached down, and instead of taking the money, scooped up the child in his big arms and stormed out the front door of the office building, around the side of the building, down the hill and around to the front door of the rental house where he proceeded to bang on the door. He was furious and was going to give the mother a piece of his mind.

The door opened and there stood my father, boy in arms, towering over a small woman in the doorway. She was dressed rather shabbily in a thin cotton dress, with an infant in her arms, and another little girl standing behind her leg holding onto the hem of her mother’s dress. All in all a pretty sad looking sight. Before Dad could say a word, the woman broke down in tears and apologized for sending over only twenty dollars, but it was all she could manage just then. She then proceeded to explain that her husband had run off and deserted her and the children, she had no job, there was no family locally to help her, but she hoped to work out something real soon if only Mr. Reed would give them until after Christmas to get more money to him.

Now Dad had come down there with every intention of giving the woman a piece of his mind, but somehow that did not seem to be appropriate. She had enough problems just then.

Dad then looked past the woman inside the house. The living room was bare except for a chair and an old battered excuse for a sofa. At that point, the woman excused her bad manners and asked him in. Still holding the boy, he walked into the house. He put the boy down and as soon as his feet hit the floor he scurried to his mother’s side and grasped her elbow. Dad asked the woman didn’t they have any better clothes to dress the children in, at least shoes for the boy to wear outside? The mother was still partially crying, but trying to control herself. She said, through her sobs, with as much dignity as she had, that these are the only clothes they have.

It was at this point that Dad realized that it was freezing in the house. He immediately thundered in his deep voice why don’t you at least turn up the heat or else the children would catch their death of cold. The gas had been turned off because they could not pay the bill, she said.

Dad looked around him at the barren, but clean, room. He noticed that there was no Christmas tree or presents. He turned and walked to the front door and told the mother to keep the twenty dollars that the little boy still clutched in his fist, and to buy the children some shoes. He left the house and climbed the hill back up to his office, got in his car and drove straight over to the gas company where he made arrangements for the gas to be turned on as soon as possible that afternoon and paid the past due amount. He then drove over to the local department store where he went in and bought gifts for the three children. Next stop was the grocery store where he left with a bag of groceries.

On the way back to the rental house he stopped at a Christmas tree lot and bought a tree. He got to the house, unloaded the car with his purchases, walked up to the house and banged on the door once more. When the woman opened the door, without a word he walked in, arms full, took the groceries to the kitchen, put the gifts on the living room floor, stepped back out the front door and got the tree and brought it in and leaned it up in a corner. Neither he nor the mother and children said a word while this was going on. The mother then dropped down in the chair with her head in her hands, baby in her lap, and cried while the other two children stood beside her staring with wide eyes at this big bear of a man.

Dad walked back to the front door, turned back around and said not to worry about the rent, to have a merry Christmas, then walked out. The mother came to the door with her children in tow as Dad walked away. She called to him that she did not know what to say except thank you and God Bless.

Dad got in his car and drove away with the foursome in the doorway watching him go.

Dad said he drove home to our nice warm house with two well fed dogs, Frosty and Big Red, on the carport to greet him with wagging tails, the big Christmas tree in the living room, full of ornaments, with snow sprayed fresh out of a can all over it (and the ceiling), presents heaped under it, three healthy, happy children laughing and playing in front of the TV, mother in the kitchen cooking up a big meal for dinner, and him with a good feeling inside his heart. He said it was the best Christmas he ever had.

As he finished relaying this story to me, he said the moral of the story is to never own rental housing. I also remember something else he told me. It was a saying to remember whenever you feel sorry for yourself: “I cried and cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”

A Christmas does not go by that I do not remember this story and the man who told it to me. A great loving man. My father. I miss him.

“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

            Matthew 25:40

The Most Remarkable Woman I Ever Met

Jessie Belle Cook Reed – Born March 16, 1911…Died December 5, 1990. A great lady. What a woman. Remarkable in every sense of the word. She was what some would refer to as a renaissance woman. She could do it all.

From a simple, austere background as the daughter of a preacher up in the mountains, she lived her life with quiet dignity and accomplished much that others would envy her for. I guess you could say she grew up hard. On the farm where the whole family pitched in to make ends meet.

She went on to get educated and educate. She became a teacher. She was my father’s teacher in High School. The old Smyrna High School. The same building where I went to Elementary School. It’s gone now, as are a lot of the old things. This includes people. She married my father’s older brother, B.F., a hell of man himself. Of course he would have had to be special to catch Jessie. She told me one time that he was the first man she ever met who she felt had as much sense as she did. She said she never really gave much stock to men before B.F. Now do not get the wrong idea. She was not being egotistical or conceited. She was too honest for that. My father used to joke and say he never would have graduated from High School if his brother had not married his teacher. Probably some truth to that.

This was a woman who raised five children – Eleanor, Rita, Ben, Cliff and Jessie Mae – and was proud of each of them for how they turned out. She would not have taken credit for that, but she was largely responsible for instilling in them what was important. Respect for self, others and God.

She was an outstanding athlete. As a young woman, basketball and tennis were her games. She could give most men a run for their money. She was an archer, too, but that is another story. I saw a picture of her, when she was in the prime of her youth. Her sister told me it was probably taken when she was in her early twenties. To me, Jessie had always looked the same. Never changed. But that picture was a revelation. She was beautiful. And healthy looking. Even though I did not know her then, that is how I will always picture her.

Young, vibrant, alive.

She did not put up with fools. That does not mean she treated them badly, only that she had nothing to do with them if she could help it. Although she did put up with those of us who did foolish things from time to time.

Smart. Taught herself to do many things. She probably could have been a great engineer or architect if she had grown up in these times and had the advantages some of us have had. Numbers held no mystery for her. Math was something her mind, with its precision, had an easy handle on. She was competitive, but not in an aggressive way. Just the same, she made her presence felt.

She and her husband owned and operated a lumberyard. The old timers will remember the Reed Building Supply across the tracks and near where Belmont Hills Shopping Center was built. My father told me that when he was building houses back in the 50’s, Jessie was the best when it came to taking a set of building plans and doing a take off on what lumber and supplies were needed to build it. This was before the days of computers and software that would do it for you. When you finished building a house Jessie supplied the lumber for, unless you messed up, there was not a big pile of odds and ends of excess lumber left over. All you had left to put in a pile and burn were bits and pieces of two by fours. That saved people money. She was honest. As the saying goes, you did not have to count your change with Jessie. You could count on her. She was as good as her word. She did not lie.

A great inner strength. She needed it with all she went through, especially later in her life. I told her one time that she was a tough old bird, and she laughed and agreed. A small, thin, frail looking woman. Her stature belied the hard muscle and strength of will attached to that bony frame. When she was what most would refer to as a senior citizen, she built a deck on the rear of her house. I am talking a deck twelve feet off the ground.

If she had a weakness or a failing, it was not of her doing. It was her lungs. She suffered in silence for years, never complaining. Near the end when she found out she had cancer, she laughed and said the cancer would never get her, it would be her lungs. She was wrong about that one.

I hope her kids know just how special she really was. I mean, I know they loved her as their mom, but sometimes who you are clouds what you are, at least in others eyes. I think they know.

She was thirty-five years my senior, but I could talk to her like no one else. We would talk for hours at a time. We could talk about anything, and we did. Mostly we talked about family. And history. She was my friend. My father told me that when you die, if you can count your true friends on your fingers and fill up one hand, then you are a lucky man. Well, Jessie is one of my fingers. She was comfort to me in hard times. I like to think I returned the favor a bit. She will be missed by many. Her family will miss their Mom, their Grandmother, their Sister, and their Aunt. I will miss a best friend.

But you know, this passing on should not be a cause for inconsolable grief, rather, a time for rejoicing in the gift we all had for a time. That gift was knowing her. And loving her. And her loving us.