Harold Johnson was one of Daddy's older brothers, and he was the twin brother of Aunt Connie. Harold was a rather unique individual and the three of us boys loved him dearly! Harold lost an eye as a kid, thanks to an incident involving him and a Yucca bush. He had a glass eye which didn't quite match the shade of his "good" eye and he loved to pop it out, place it on his thumb and scare all the nieces and nephews of the Johnson family with it by saying "I'm keeping an eye on you!" and touching you with it. It was horrifying yet funny, and some of us didn't quite know how to react to his pranks.
Harold was a Cotton buyer for the textile industry which was booming in the Southeast after WWII and he lived in Greenville, SC for a while in the early 1970s. He was pretty successful during those times and I recall stopping to visit him in 1972 when we were returning from a family camping trip to Six Flags in Atlanta. His house was, as I recall, a true Mid-Century masterpiece....a split level Ranch situated in a swanky section of Greenville. It had a cool stone fireplace, swag lamps and the low-slung furniture that was so popular in the 1950s and 60s. It was cold in the house thanks to central air (something that was totally foreign to me) and he kept it dark in there. He was also a hard-drinking kind of guy (which explains the atmosphere) and was quite proud of his wet bar. It was almost like a shrine with a mirror for a backstop and was illuminated with an array of track lights, and had a large collection of fancy cut-glass decanters that were partially filled with mysterious liquids of various shades ranging from clear to dark brown. I watched him with curiosity as he plucked a few ice cubes with chrome tongs from an avocado-green bucket and placed them into an odd little glass that was much shorter and wider than the tea glasses I was accustomed to. He would then pull the stopper out of a decanter containing one of the mysterious amber fluids and pour the glass only half-full. I had heard Mama say that Uncle Harold was a "drinker" and I thought it odd that if he was thirsty, then why didn't he fill the glass to the brim?
Well, sometime about 1975 Uncle Harold appeared at our front door in the middle of the night. I recall it being a little chaotic when he appeared, and Mama certainly wasn't too happy about the reunion! Uncle Harold had several suitcases with him and the next morning the three of us boys were elated to find out that Harold would be staying with us for a short while. I don't recall the exact explanation Mama gave us, but I am sure it was a doozy! We were just excited to have him with us because we loved his stories and thought he was a lot of "fun"!
Harold got a job with a cotton grading business and had an office up a flight of stairs beside Frank Gates five and dime store. We loved going to see him in the office which was also a cold, dark place filled with papers, invoices and a huge ledger book with all sorts of curious notations of weights, prices and market expectations. He had a small refrigerator in there that he kept stocked with the small 6 1/2 ounce Coca-Cola bottles and we always got one whenever we stopped in to see him. At the time I didn't understand why he never drank them straight out of the bottle but instead he always poured it into one of those curious little low-slung glasses that seemed to have the remnants of an earlier Coke in it and a few ice cubes. We would lip the little bottles and observe him take a short sip of his, the cubes making a "tink-tink" noise as he drank. Sometimes our Uncle Dusty would be there (Uncle Dusty managed a couple of cotton gins in Bennettsville) and he would always have a Coke with peanuts in it, and a pack of Lucky Strikes would be visible in his shirt pocket. We cherished every moment of our visits because we got to hear adults talking about adult business, and it made us feel so grown up!
One Sunday morning a couple of months after Uncle Harold took up residence in the front bedroom of 105 South Cook Street we were walking out of the house to make the three-block walk down to First United Methodist Church. As we passed the front bedroom we could hear Uncle Harold peeling the paint off the walls with his snoring. Mama quickly shooed us along and out the front door, and there......it.....was! Sitting in the driveway was a 1962 Ford Thunderbird convertible! It was white with a red interior, two-tone red and white tuck & roll leather bucket seats, a center console with a T-handle shifter, all sorts of gauges trimmed with chrome bezels and we thought it was the hottest, fastest looking thing we had ever seen. As Daddy often said, it looked as if it was going 100 MPH sitting still!
Once again, Mama hurried us along and we proceeded on to Church with the three of us twittering about it all the way. Mama didn't seem to share in our excitement over the Thunderbird and Daddy had a curious look on his face, mixed with awe and embarrassment. There was some sort of whispered conversation between Mama and Daddy as they urged us to go ahead and head to Church, that they would catch up to us when we got there.
We told everyone in the Sunday School class about the marvel in our driveway and the tale spread like wildfire throughout First United Methodist Church. Everyone wanted to know about the Thunderbird and Daddy got peppered with question after question about it. We delighted in the attention as Daddy looked sheepish. Mama had THAT look on her face and her pursed lips and slightly reddened face told a part of the tale. We just knew that something was amiss......
When we arrived home Uncle Harold was up and about, and enjoying a glass of Coca-Cola in that curious little glass with only a few ice cubes in it that made the funny "tinky-tink" noise as he gestured towards the Thunderbird. "Sootie", he exclaimed...."That car is a gift from me to the boys! They will be driving in just a few years and why not let them drive in style?" We boys whooped and hollered as we raced out to check out our new ride. We climbed in and took turns sitting behind the steering wheel, imagining ourselves cruising down Main Street and making the right turn onto Cheraw Street where we would be gunning it hard all the way to the Dairy Dream, drawing looks of envy from our friends that would be situated in the parking lot in their Volkswagen Beetles or tired old Ford Fairlanes or Chevy II "hand-me-downs" from their grandparents. We couldn't wait to turn fifteen and get our licenses so we could be the coolest kids in town!
Sadly, our dream was short-lived. The Thunderbird was gone by the afternoon and Uncle Harold's Ford LTD station wagon occupied the spot in the driveway once again. Apparently, Uncle Harold had gotten into a hot poker game the night before in Laurinburg and had won the Thunderbird in a particularly rowdy deal. We were pretty blue about it, and Mama had that other look on her face...the one of a silent, moral victory. Daddy also looked a little sheepish and we put two and two together, and held a grudge against Mama for a few days.
Shortly thereafter Uncle Harold moved out and rented an apartment on West Main Street, a grungy walk-up across from Thomas Memorial Baptist Church. We were saddened to see him go but were glad he remained in town. He was still close and although we rarely visited his apartment we enjoyed dropping in on him at the office for Cokes, peanuts and to listen to him and Uncle Dusty talk about adult stuff and once again feel as if we were grown. Sadly, Uncle Harold passed away not long after moving out. I remember Mama saying that on the day he died Daddy and Uncle Dusty sat on his porch, held hands and cried.
I understand completely now. No matter how aggravating family members can be, no matter how much embarrassment they can bring, blood is indeed thicker than water. I learned that lesson with my brother Matt, whom paralleled everything that many of the Johnson boys did forty years prior. As much aggravation or embarrassment he may have caused, he was still my brother and I love him dearly and miss him even more. Have a rice day, y'all!