Charley For A Day

Back in December I needed to do some work around the house.  I mean like real “guy” type work.  I had to put up a medicine cabinet and some other things.  So I put on one of my dad’s shirts that he had given me before he passed away and then the Swafford Construction Company jacket with his name on it.  I became “Little Charley” and was able get all the man type stuff completed.

The reason it’s a big deal is because my dad was an expert, especially when it came to cabinet making. He owned his own construction company most of his life. I thought it was especially fascinating when he was going all over the MidWest putting stores in shopping malls that he had the contracts for like KB Toy & Hobby stores. Those fixtures were built in the shop below our house while I was in high school.

The point is that he was a skilled professional with tools while I on the other hand was only skilled at being a tool and running my mouth. Physical labor was not part of my skill set.

As a matter of fact when I was in high school I worked at the radio station and at the same time I also worked at Blairs Furniture to get work credit in the COE program at school. I was hired when I went in to interview with Bill when I was only 15 years old and Bill had basically retired already and Allen Dale was the manager who went on to buy the store later. For some reason Bill interviewed me though and I’ll never forget that process. It loses it’s effect in words because any Bill Blair story lacks he’s grouchy slow unfiltered delivery.

Here’s the scene of my interview….

Bill is leaning up against a used washer in the back part of the building. He was holding what seemed like a metal strainer of some sort and was twirling it with his hand. He was a big guy and already was many years past his prime with white hair for the hair that he had left and was squinting through glasses that seemed to be years beyond their prescription. He would subconsciously grab the frames with his free hand while squinting at me. Something that I would come to recognize over the years I knew him. The interview dialog went like this…

Bill: What’s your name again?

Me: Mike Swafford

Bill: Whose your parents?

Me: Charles and Rose Swafford

Bill: Ok, God Damn It I know who they are then. Do you have your license yet? (This was in April)

Me: Not yet I should get it in June on my birthday.

Bill: All right God Damn it come in on Tuesday and Allen will put you to work. We’re closed on Monday.

So what does this have to do with my dad and my lack of carpentry skills? Bill would have projects at his house or rental properties and he would get a wild hair and come by the store and take me with him to do something. I never knew what it was going to be. Bill would show up unannounced and say “Allen, I’m taking Swafford with me for awhile. Go get in the car boy” I never worried about being abused because he was far from being a predator type. However, I would be lying if I didn’t say the thought crossed my mind that I might be going somewhere to dispose of a body. (Although, Bill has been gone for many years and statute of limitations should be expired by now I still find no reason confirm nor deny any accessory I may have been to any activity legal, illegal or otherwise)

I would get in his Cadillac all 127 lbs and 5 foot 7 inches and wonder what the hell I was going to be asked to do wherever it was he was taking me. The most vivid memory was typical of his expectation that since my dad was Charley that surely I had some carpentry skills. He had to have figured if nothing else it accidently was in my bloodstream through genetics. This was not the case and I was always worried he was going to be asking me to do things I couldn’t come close to doing like hold a board in his hand wanting me to use an electric hand saw to cut it and I would surely slice off his arm and the saw would probably bounce back and start skipping across my forehead like some 3 Stooges scene gone terrible wrong. However, the vivid memory I had was having to crawl under this old house he had just bought in Lexington. Since I was just a scrawny ass kid I guess he figured it would be easy for me to fit in there where I was quite positive there was a rattlesnake den next to a beanbag sized batch of spiders eggs in front of the hornets nest that must have been behind the pipes I was supposed to crawling under and around. This particular task was for me to get under there and take some shards of fiberglass insulation with my bare hands which immediately felt like they had a thousand paper cuts on them and find a hole that he was sure was in the foundation under the house about the size of a quarter that I needed to fill with this insulation in my hands. The trouble was (among all the other things) that there was a gradual slope under the house toward where he thought the hole was. So while the place I got under the house was was about 18 inches high it shrunk to about 5 inches where I was supposed to find the hole and put the insulation. Bill’s a big guy so he had to rely on me to do it and I was having trouble because I was starting to get wedged between the bottom of the house and the ground. “Jesus Christ just crawl up there a little further. God Damn it boy can’t you squeeze up there a little more?”

That scene didn’t require carpentry work but it’s my most vivid with Bill regarding that kind of stuff. The other stuff that required carpenter work just involved memories of “Well God Damn son. Are you sure you’re Charley’s boy?”