"Pretty Bell..."

"When John Henry was a baby..."

I seem to be stuck in a rut where I am thinking back to when I was a little pair of ~shoes~... and I do mean little!!

Way back once upon a time, my Dad had this mountain of a black man that worked for him...  I would like to say that he looked like that fellow in the statue above, but the fact of the matter is that he was even more built!  I remember him with huge shoulders and arms... and a great chest, but with a smaller waist.  Probably the kind of physique that most body builders would die for.

I can't remember too much of what I knew about him just simply due to the time that has slipped away... but his Momma named him 'Pretty'... and his last name was Bell...

Pretty Bell...

I would love to imagine that his Mom thought he was the prettiest baby she had ever seen.  Maybe it was more like the song, "Boy Named Sue"... where maybe Mom thought he needed a name that would cause him to have to toughen up and take care of himself... defend himself.

Pretty Bell was a gentle giant.

I remember one day that a piece of equipment broke down... and Dad was fretting about how he was going to get it fixed... Pretty Bell told Dad that if the part was ordered, that he could repair it...  

Dad ordered the part... the part arrived... Dad had Pretty Bell come into the office... Dad gave him the instructions... Pretty Bell looked at them... took the part and left the office.  My Dad gave me this wide-eyed look and said... 

"He can't read..."

Dad said that he held the papers upside down and looked over it... I guess too embarrassed to tell Dad that he couldn't read... poor fellow.  Of course, after the work was completed, the machine ran like a sewing machine (why do we refer to well-running machines as running like sewing machines?)...

Some times flashes by.. and Pretty Bell has quit working for Dad to go to work for someone else.  I don't remember the details of what happened or why... it just happened.

Another block of time passes, and Mom tells me that Pretty Bell died at his new work place.  He had suffered a heat stroke... and he was gone. 

There is an old cemetery that was old when Pretty Bell died and was buried in it.  That part of town was referred to as 'The Brick Yard'... I can only imagine that there was a brick yard there...



There are songs about Brick Yard Blues and such... I wonder what the connotation is?

Anyway... Pretty Bell is buried in the Brick Yard Cemetery... no headstone... no nothing... no anything.  Nothing to ever indicate that he lived... that he died... and that he had that WONDERFUL name... I have no idea where he is buried in that place.  I've talked to black ministers... black funeral home owners... no one knows.  My oldest sister says she knows, but... who really knows.

Brick Yard Cemetery

If you have read much of my Blog, you know I do dumb shit... that I am really soft-hearted and very sentimental.  I'm going to find where he is... and place a headstone on his grave.  If I can't find the grave, I will ask permission to place the stone in Memory of him...

There needs to be some memory of this fellow... that he was born... given a wonderful name... and died... and was loved by a little boy... and many many years later, is still remembered.

"...you still walk the furrowed fields of my mind

Faded shirt, your weathered brow

Your caloused hands upon the plow

I loved you then and I love you now..."

These lyrics from 'Reuben James' remind me of Pretty Bell...

I would love to have a dollar for every time that rascal has rambled through my memory...

~shoes~