Just before my father died in July 1990, he told me, “I have always lived my life according to what I thought a man should do”. That statement did not really hit home with me until just recently. My first analysis of that statement did not take place until after the year 2000 when I took it apart and focused on the word “thought”. It was not about what he felt, or what he considered himself called to do, but what he thought a man should do; how he thought a man should be. Just recently, while working on a piece by William Faulkner and trying to find a codified copy of a guide to Southern Gentlemen did I discover a deeper meaning. My father was telling me that he learned what he learned, not from his father who died in 1936 when my Dad was only ten, but from the culture around him. Having grown up in the company of merchant seaman, his path could have been radically different. Instead, he learned, and I do not know from whom he learned, to take the best from everyone and to discard the rest. From the merchant seamen he took loyalty and a hard work ethic. From his Mother he took dogged determination. In addition, he took myriad qualities from thousands of sources to form what he “thought” a man should do.
This is when I knew the oral tradition is alive and well in 21st Century America; or at least in 20th Century America. He passed his oral traditions of what he thought to my brother and me over countless encounters on seemingly trivial subjects. While shucking corn to put in the freezer for the winter – “It’s okay to give out, just don’t give up.” On States’ Rights during the Civil Rights movement – “When you’re on the job, then the job goes to the best man and color doesn’t matter; but I don’t want the Federal government telling me who I have to socialize with”. This little bit of wisdom I saw personally played out dozens of times when I had the opportunity to work with my Dad during summers while I was in college. One time in particular I remember sitting in his office at a stone quarry in Alabama when a suit walked in from the Federal government without knocking (rude behavior) and threw a list on my Dad’s desk, informing him that he had to meet those quotas of racial equality on the job site. My Dad scanned the list and then looked up and asked, “Will you help me inform my men about this?” When the visitor looked flustered and said he would, my Dad informed him, “Because I am going to have to fire three black men and two spics and replace them with white guys.” The suit about dropped his teeth, grabbed his sheet of paper and walked away. As far as I know, they never came back to that plant, at least not as long as Dad was there.
Other things he used to tell us, “You can learn something from every person you meet, and you can teach something to every person you meet.” “Never do anything less than your best.” “You can break the laws of man and possibly get away with it, but you cannot break the laws of God without it catching up with you.” Moreover, other things that I remember when I am not trying to remember things that are important. This oral tradition was passed on to me, got confused with the times (the 60’s and 70’s) and did not really come to fruition until I was in my late 30’s through early 50’s.
