This is the week that my ol Daddy died, Ol Pug. This one is for you Mike Foster. July 20,1997 was the end night. Daddy fought the reaper with all his might. July 20, was his sister Stellers birthday, he was at Providence Hospital. His nephew and my cousin Ernie died in the same room last year. All the week Daddy had been in the hospital with severe back pain, he was medicated, he had lung cancer. Now that being said here is a short story of the man that was alive. I lost the Mayor election in 1988 in Citronelle. Buddy Smith won, and me and Buddy are cousins. I had served on the City Council for 4 years, and was giving the Mayor spot a go. In the Administration that I was in, continued strife, and controversy. Citronelle was then and was forever split with 2 factions, no such thing as getting along with both sides. As Johnnie Zehner said it was run by the mafia. On election day I wait till the last minute to go vote, and hang around for the results. Leslie, Ol Pug Sister Rose and Lynn came up to the polls behind me, they stay outside while I am inside for the vote tally. There are many hundreds of people standing on the outside listening out for the winners to be announced. In the crowd were some folks that didnt take to kindly to me, and as the votes were counted and I was not winning they became ugly and started bashing me in a most foul way. Sister Rose and Sister Lynn told Leslie, lets get out of here, it was close to a lynch mob, and their feelings for me was being trampled. Ol Pug stayed, he told them Ill get him home. After the tally and all was done, I had lost an election and was at peace with it. As I step out of the building you would have thought I had horns and a tail, the crowd just parted like the Red Sea, it was like a mowed path. I knew everybody and spoke to them, because all I could see was people. After I had made about 10 steps Shorty Smith dear Shorty Buddys daughter came from the crowd, walked to me, tears flowing from her eyes. She said Curtis I am so sorry, so sorry. I reached and held her hand and said Shorty it is ok. I never saw Shorty alive again. She and I had the same birthday she was just one year older. She had a bad heart. She steps back into the crowd and I was hunting the car, the next person to step from the crowd was ol Pug, he bumped my arm and said this way man. We got to the car, and got home. No way in a million years was that old man going to let them people hurt me. If he would have had Steller up there, they both would have whup the crowd, and made them take us home. I told Lesalie the other night, there is no way that I will ever forget that, I relive it often. I had no grudge against them people, politics is rough business. But, a Daddy that will stand by his children, is something to write home about.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:54:42 +0000
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