Lincoln D. Blakely
In praise, too.
If you read the obit on Mr. Blakely in Monday’s paper, you know he worked for Hill’s Moving and Storage for 45 of his 72 years. What you may not know is something my son and heir, Barry (Hill’s president), once told me about “Chubby.”
“Dad, when people we have moved before call for another move, they ask if they can get Chubby again,” he said. “If I tell them he’s booked for like two weeks, I get ‘We’ll wait on Chubby.’ He’s something of a legend in our business.”
I also have another connection in that Chubby’s sister, Ruth Brown, was a caregiver for the three years or so my late aunt, Lura Barrett, was at Autumn Cove. She and another lady, Julia Burton, were kind and gentle and always there.
Good people … very good people … all.
In talking with 81-year-old Pearl Dutton, who drives an Anniston City school bus, there was a flashback ...
There is another lady driver in my memory, the late Nell Doggrell.
I’m not sure how long Mrs. Doggrell drove a school bus, but I do know she was “my” driver in the early-to-mid forties when I put in a couple of years at Saks, then a junior high. It is not far-fetched to say she was probably the first woman school bus driver in Alabama.
She had some help, too, a wee lad not of school age, but who rode with his mom and worked the stop-sign lever for her.
Her “kid” turned out pretty good, too. His name is Emmett Doggrell, a former Anniston policeman who finished out his career as head of the county task force (drugs mostly).
Nell Doggrell was a very nice lady with a very nice smile, but her word was absolute law on that bus.
Two weeks from right now, Sunday May 19, is FATHER’S DAY, and the reason I tell that is found an old “joke” about Father’s Day that I like to tell you each year.
It is Jan. 1 and the kids are sitting around when someone says, “Hey, don’t forget Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 8.”
Now it is September, like the week after Labor Day and the kids are sitting around when someone says, “Hey, guess what? Father’s Day was back in June. I think it was June 19.”
Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t bother me one bit if the blonde has her very own “day” like 364 times a year. It’s just I don’t think it’s all that selfish that we Dads get at least one.
End of sermon ...
WHAT WOULD you have done?
I am in a checkout line. In front of me are three people. Two of them are having trouble figuring how to check out in a timely fashion, to put it mildly.
During one transaction, the young lady on the register runs into a problem.
She asks a young man at the next register for help.
Young man who is also checking out a customer, stops and comes to help. He quickly solves the problem . . . while his customer waits.
So, what would you have done?
Tell you the truth, I really don’t know.
Have a good day . . .
George Smith can be reached at 256-239-5286 or e-mail: gsmith731@gmail.com
