it was on june 6, in the year i turned six

it was on june 6, in the year i turned six....that evening events took place that would make life never the same again.......

it was a time when i learned of how very evil man and the world could be......

my sister, who was three, and i spent more time at our grandmother's house than at our own......to us her house was the most magical place in all the world.....

to this day it makes me smile when i think about "poppy" and his sock.......poppy, my grandfather...everyone called him pop F*****.... thus to us he was poppy......
every day when he came home he put his change in a sock in his top drawer......each evening he would say to my grandmother with a wink..."maye, this sock must have a hole in it, my change keeps disappearing".... my sister and i would just giggle because everyday when the ice cream man came around my grandmother would say for us to get some money out of poppy's sock..... it was a really fun game for us.....

each evening when he came home from work he always had something for us.....we would meet him at the car for our surprise.....a small bag of popcorn, some candy or if his day had been extremely busy he would give us each a quarter.....wow....a quarter.....

he made sure my grandmother lacked for nothing....as a new appliance came to be she was the first to get it.... they loved each other very much and it showed......

he was an avid reader, a speed reader, he read six novels a week......we knew when poppy was reading we were not to bother him........i can still see him in his chair with his book....he was a big man, not fat, big....big and very tall....a formidable figure....

he had a thing about bottles or jars on the table.... that was a big no no.....if my grandmother would forget he would simply say.....maye.....lol....the bottle or jar was removed from the table and the contents were put into a small serving bowl.....that was just the way he had been raised in a small town in alabama...... there is a street there named for his family..... each night my mother and her sister took terns washing the dishes.... you can just imagine his reaction the night he sat down to eat and my aunt had placed bread wrappers on the table instead of plates......lol....

we lived in a very large coastal virginia city..... my grandfather was the business manager for the electical union.....he was also a very active mason.... his job was an elected position, one that he held for many years until his life was taken from him.....

on june 6th it was the night that newly elected persons were to be sworn in..... he was running late that night and for the first time in their marriage he did not kiss my grandmother goodbye.....he just said..... see you later maye.....that was not to be.....the next time she saw him was when the morning paper came and they had published his dead body laying on the floor of the union hall.... this was a big no no back then and the paper took a lot of heat for that picture.....

my grandfather always carried in his shirt pocket a gold capped pen and pencil that had been given to him by the electrical union.....

there was a man i will call CD who was an alcoholic and could not keep a job no matter where  my grandfather would try to place him.....no business or contractor would have him so my grandfather sent him on out of town jobs..... CD didn't like that and blamed my grandfather because he always had to leave the city to work..... he had threatened to kill my grandfather many times....

my grandfather had just been sworn in again and turned to make a speech......CD came rushing in the door shooting all around the room......then he made the shot he wanted to make.... he shot my grandfather right in the heart....the bullet went right through his gold capped pencil..... i have the pen.....

my dad was at sea.....that night my mother was in our kitchen ironing.....she usually had the radio on.... but not that night.....it was a good thing she didn't have it on.....

my grandparents had a HUGE yard,......on one end of the property they had built what we called the little house......my grandfather's cousin and his wife lived there......the cousin was also an electrican and had been at the meeting.....he was the one to tell my grandmother but first he came to get my mother.... i can remember when he knocked on the screen door of the kitchen.....his wife was with him and she took my sister and i to another room......then i heard my mother scream and the sob of all sobs.....we stayed at our house while mother went with the cousin to tell my grandmother.... my grandmother cried for days.....i have all the newspaper clippings....

this shooting was a very big thing....some were wounded, two other men died, and because of my grandfather's position.....remember. this was back in the hey day of unions.....my grandfather was considered to be a very important and powerful man......

there was a constant parade of people driving by the house....my sister and i were not allowed to play outside...... CD had been immediately captured but it was all the people driving by....all the reporters who kept coming to the house....the constant phone calls... it was a very difficult time for everyone, even me at age six......of course my father had gotten emergency leave and had come home.....

his funeral procession was nine miles long.... quite a tribute to a wonderful man.....one side of my grandmothers yard connected to the church next to her...... i stood there under the rose covered arhbor and, with the innocence of a six year old, asked our minister.....why did God take my poppy home he didn't do anything to anybody?...the minister squated down to my level and told me..... God likes to have good people in heaven.....he held me while i cried..... his answer satisfied me.....

there was a trial.....the attorney for my grandmother was the best there was in the city....the union saw to that.....CD pleaded insanity.....he was sentenced to life in the state mental hospital.....remember the movie.....snake pit.....my grandmother was very upset at the sentence until the attorney told her......mrs F*****, if he is not insane now he will be after he is in that place for a few months......CD died in the mental institution.....

our lives were forever changed.....no longer was there poppy's sock.....or meeting him at the car.... or sitting on his lap......my mother and her sister no longer had their father..... my dad no longer had the man he looked up to so very much..... and my beloved grandmother, oh how she suffered.....

i had learned how evil man could be.......

copyright 2009   Lady Solskin