I loved my daddy. If you’ve read my Memoir, “Imagine Me,” you may be wondering about that statement. My daddy, like most humans had many failings. He was an alcoholic and while he was married to my mother, he lived around the corner with another woman. That, of course was not the whole story.
When I think back to my memory of George Emanuel Jones Sr., I see the best instead of the worst. I remember how loud and funny my daddy was. We would spend the entire time together laughing and having fun. If you know me personally, you know that I can be loud and funny. There is a big resemblance.
When my daddy walked into a room, he filled it up with his presence. He was tall, loud, black and good looking. He demanded attention. He was a very intelligent man who, as far as we can trace back, only went to the 8th grade and never received his high school diploma. I remember that most of our time spent together after my mama died; before he left was spent watching news and travel shows.
My daddy would walk right up to the television, no matter what we were watching and turn the channel. There was this one show that he loved. It was hosted by a stout Englishman named George Perrot. I remember this show because, still trying to be the good girl, I would sit and watch with my daddy. He knew all about current events. He knew about politics, sports, and history that mattered like Cuba, Kissinger, and Kennedy. I would listen to him even though I didn’t quite understand. The way he absorbed the information was, to use his word “Awesome.”
My daddy had these sayings that would just make me giggle and laugh. Sayings like “Little pictures have big ears.” Which meant that if little kids were around when grown folks were talking, they were probably listen to it all and soaking it in for later use.
Most of these sayings bordered on the obscene. “Don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash,” or another variant was: “Don’t let your mouth overload your ass.” As young children, there were those that Mama and Miss Mary would say, “George, don’t tell them kids that!” Being a little picture, I used to eat these things up. There was a song that Daddy liked to sing:
Oh, the monkey wrapped his ass around the flag pole,
He caught a bad cold,
In his ass-hole.
His hole was cold!
Daddy was fond of telling us stories and he often told us about people he knew or had worked with during his time at Great Lakes Steel. Anybody who had somehow made money, or made it out of a bad situation, was said to be “Standing in Tall Cotton.” This obviously is better than having to bend down and pick short cotton. Any woman who might have a large behind was said to have an ass that was “Wider than an oat sack.” Now we, as kids had never seen an oat sack but we got the jest of this. Another person of limited intelligence might be said to be “Dumber than a fart in church.”
The best piece of advice that was handed down to me often was “Don’t be no fool,” said only in the way that daddy could say it, which was loud and with a face that said, “Is it really necessary that I explain this to you?” This was interchangeable with “Don’t play me cheap” or “Don’t play me for a fool.” He had that Pennsylvania drawl that we could hear when he or his sisters spoke.”Why Sho,” they would say like they didn’t believe you didn’t know.”Why Sho Mr. brown was a farmer.” Kind of like the way New Englanders say, “Don’t cha know.?”
One thing I’ve learned through my life is that no matter what happened in your past. No matter how much you strive to not be like your parents, their genes and the genes of their fathers and mothers run through you. It’s hard to hate someone when you are so much alike. I think that’s all a part of God’s plan. It’s not apparent to you how this works until you become a-parent. I can look at it now and see it, even when I’m standing in tall cotton.
