No Hill Too High for a Stepper

by Mike Mahan

  We didn’t see the colored waiting room that day, but I was quite curious about it. Finally, one day I strolled down to the office, opened the door, and peered into it. It had wooden chairs and only one small table with dog-eared magazines scattered on it. I could see that the sliding window into the receptionist’s office was very small. I’d like to report that I was bothered by the disparity of the two waiting rooms, but at the time I really wasn’t. It just seemed to be the way things were.

  Dr. Foots Parnell I remember as being somewhat stiff, but Dr. Hubbard was another matter. He was rather courtly, with a broad smile and a neatly trimmed moustache. He drove a sporty ’39 Ford five-window coupe and could be seen scratching off as he headed out to do a house call, maybe to deliver a baby. Females of all ages were quite taken with him. He was married, but had no children at that time. He liked children very much though and was said by everyone to be very sympathetic when they were ill. But when I went to him when I was about twelve, I did not find that to be entirely true. I had a risen—our word for a boil—on the back of my neck that, despite my mother’s good efforts, would not come to a head. I had had risens before, and she would take two wooden matches and place them between her finger and thumb on either side of the boil and roll them together until the core of the risen would shoot out like a little sack covered with blood and white pus. But this time the method just wouldn’t work, and she sent me to Dr. Hubbard to see what he could do. The nurse took me into the examining room where Dr. Hubbard waited for me wearing a white physician’s coat, under which he had on a white shirt and a tie. He seated me on the stool and asked his assistant to get him a sharp silver instrument, one end of which looked like small pliers. He put a white towel around my neck, put on gloves, bent my head forward, stuck this silver thing in the boil, rolled it round and round, and out came the bloody, pus-soaked core. The whole procedure was agonizingly painful. When it was over I expected some sympathetic remark, but he merely chuckled. It certainly didn’t strike me as funny at all.

  After Dr. Hubbard had taped gauze over the place the risen had been, he went over and wrote out a prescription for some salve he wanted me to use. When he handed it to me, I was amazed to see his chicken scratching, and I wondered how in the world Dr. Wilson at the drugstore would make out these hieroglyphics. When I asked Dr. Wilson how he was able to read it, he said, “His handwriting is no worse than other doctor’s. I think they teach them that in medical school.”

  As I grew older, people often said that I looked like Dr. Hubbard. When I turned fifty, I told Dr. Hubbard, with whom I had shared an office since 1966, “I’ve been through the last thirty years with everybody saying I look like you. I want for the next thirty for them to say you look like me.” Dr. Hubbard, well up in his eighties then, just smiled, his eyes dancing in their usual way. “We’ll see,” he said.

  The other doctor on Shelby Street was Dr. Ted Bridges, who came to Montevallo when they closed the mines at Boothton, where he had been the company doctor. He moved into a large Victorian home three houses down Shelby Street from us toward the little red bridge. He had his office upstairs over the Plaza Grill on Main Street, two doors away from Dad’s barbershop. Dr. Bridges always entered the building by way of the fire escape on the back of the building. His office, though not as nice as that of Dr. Parnell and Dr. Hubbard, was nicer than Dr. Acker’s. He had a receptionist and an assistant who handled charts, and, unlike Dr. Acker, he was quite organized. You knew once you walked into his office that you were in a doctor’s office—everything very clean, green, and sterile.

  Like Dr. Hubbard, Dr. Bridges had a wonderful way with patients. Of all the town’s doctors, Mother thought he was best with children. He had every reason to be, as he had sired a family of six—Lydia, Eula (also known as Sis), Catherine, Pick, Owen, and Ed. Dr. Bridges was quiet and was very serious about his professional appearance and his medical obligations, seldom clowning or joking the way that Dr. Hubbard did.

  With Dr. Bridges, Dr. Acker, Dr. Parnell, and Dr. Hubbard all either living or practicing on Shelby Street, I think it is fair to say that our street was the medical center of Montevallo. But our status was reflected in other ways. Montevallo’s only attorney, Owen Bridges, had his office in a building next to the ice plant. So I guess you could say Shelby Street was the legal center of our town as well.

  We were the business center of Montevallo, too. Although we had never heard of an industrial corridor or industrial park at that time, I think that is exactly what you had on Shelby Street. There were Pete Givhan’s Coca-Cola warehouse, Mr. Dyer’s grist mill, the ice plant, Mr. Brown’s saw mill, Mr. Brown’s molding plant, the Gulf Oil Distributing Center, Acme Oil Company, and the Southern Railway Depot. Mr. Brown installed the first generator for electrical power in Montevallo. He needed steam power to run the refrigerants needed for the ice plant, but, being the entrepreneur he was, he saw the opportunity to use the excess steam to provide electrical power to the town. He ran power lines up Shelby Street to Main Street. Shortly after that, Alabama Power bought and enlarged Mr. Brown’s system, the site of today’s main substation.

  Taken altogether, these businesses provided the lifeblood of Montevallo. All of the incoming and outgoing goods shipped by railroad came down Shelby Street, and if lightning struck the Alabama Power distribution center on the right just across the little red bridge, then Montevallo went dark.

  Mr. Dyer’s grist mill was also vital to Montevallo’s well-being. Without the cornmeal he ground, Montevallo folks would not have had the major staple of their diets. Without his feed mill, there would have been no feed for Mr. J. K. Cunningham’s cows and many Montevallians would have been without milk. Nor would they have been able to get Mrs. Russell’s goat milk. Without the ice plant and delivery service, there would have been no way to make homemade ice cream in those hand-cranked ice cream makers. Refrigerators in those days did not make enough ice to freeze ice cream.

  J. A. Brown, Jr. and Sr. inside Brown’s Grocery near Brown’s ice plant, saw mill, cotton gin, and Acme Oil.

  Also vital to Montevallo’s operation was Mr. Eddie’s Gulf Service Station, which stood on the corner where Shelby crossed Main Street. Without it, things would have come to a standstill in Montevallo. The Alabama Power Company trucks and the college delivery trucks would have never made their rounds, and the fire trucks and Mr. Rogan or Mr. Jeter’s ambulance or funeral home services would have been unable to operate. And then there was the gin. The farmers from Brierfield, Dry Valley, Spring Creek, and all around couldn’t get their cotton ginned in the fall except at the gin down Shelby Street. This was especially important, as cotton was so vital to our economy. I well remember that every September school would let out for a week so girls and boys both could help their families pick cotton.

  And one last effect of Shelby Street businesses on the community was quite important to me as a boy. Had it not been for Pete Givhan’s Coca-Cola warehouse, all of us for miles around Shelby Street would have had no Cokes to enjoy, and the soda fountain at Wilson’s Drug Store could not have served Coke floats. And what would a Bulldog football game have been without Coke at the concession stand? The lack of Cokes would surely have affected my Dad and his friends, as they would have lacked their favorite chaser to cut the moonshine they liked to drink.

  As I look back, I have to conclude that Montevallo would have been a very dreary place without all that Shelby Street offered.

  15

  Main Street

  Although I thought Shelby Street was the center of the universe, much less of Montevallo, many would have argued that Main Street was the central focus of our town. We lived just a short walk from Main Street, and my friends and I considered it part of our playground. Naturally, the most important establishment on Main Street, as far as I was concerned, was Mother and Dad’s shop. It was there that I regularly saw not only people from Montevallo, but also from the nearby communities who thought of Montevallo, th
en the wealthiest and busiest city in Shelby County, as “town.”

  Dad opened his barber shop in 1923 on Main Street next door to the Strand Theater. Cashing in on the hair style fad of the time, he called his place Red’s Bobher Shop. Later it would be known as the Mahan Barber & Beauty Shop.

  Dad always kept his shop, which was constructed of painted brick, clean and neat. He had Harry Miller, his shoeshine boy, sweep the sidewalk every afternoon. Harry or Dad also rolled down the striped fabric awning every morning and rolled it up at closing time. Under the awning sat a bench, sheltered from the sun and rain, and this bench was seldom empty. We called it the Dead Pecker Bench, though for many years I had no idea why. It was usually occupied by various old men in the community who wanted to escape their own households and have the company of each other. They hardly moved and the conversation was minimal, but I was always struck by the look of contentment on their faces.

  The notorious dead pecker bench in front of Dad’s shop where George Wallace once campaigned for governor. Pete Givhan’s Insurance Agency was located next door.

  That bench was occupied once by a man well known in Alabama annals, but he did not sit on it. He stood with a microphone in his hand, addressing people up and down the street. George Wallace came to Montevallo in 1958 the first time he ran for governor, a race he lost. But he became friends with Dad, who became his campaign manager in Shelby County. Much later, while Wallace was governor I had the occasion a number of times to see him in his office when I was trying to get funding for Brierfield Park. Each time I told him who I was, he would say, “Oh, yes, you are Red Mahan’s son.” Wallace had a phenomenal memory—especially of those who supported him.

  Dad’s shop got pretty hot in the summer, but people were used to heat then. We always had the front and back doors propped open to have a cross breeze, and two ceiling fans made a lazy flop, flop sound all day long. Dad proudly pointed out that the Hunter fans had been installed when the shop was built in the early twenties, and all he had to do was oil them three or four times a year.

  When you walked through the door of the shop you were immediately struck by the smells of, I thought, age and cleanliness. There was always something a little melancholy about the smell of the shoe wax and leather, of the Vitalis hair oil and talcum powder. Plus there was always the smell of shampoo and permanent wave dressing drifting in from Mother’s beauty parlor, and on wash days—Monday and Thursday—there was the smell of Oxydol washing powders and Clorox coming from the washing shed out back.

  Before World War II, Mother and Dad did the family wash along with the shop towels in the wringer washing machine that was housed in a corrugated tin shed out back. Monday was the main wash day, but there was always more washing to be done on Thursdays. On Mondays, the first thing Dad did when he arrived at the shop was to take up the ashes in the stove in the washroom, shoveling them into a coal scuttle and taking them out back to add to a huge mound of ashes at the back of the lot. Then he would come in and make a fire to heat the water. It felt great back there during the winter, but in summer the heat was stifling. Then he and Mother would throw the towels and other items in the machine, adding scoops of Oxydol from a 25-pound box that sat in the corner. When the water was sufficiently hot, he would add it to the washing machine through a rubber hose, also adding cold water through a separate hose. Once the clothes were covered, it was safe to pour in some Clorox bleach. Only then could the machine be turned on, and its big paddles began slowly swishing back and forth, back and forth in its quarter turns. Once the wash was through, the machine would have to be emptied of dirty water and rinse water added. When the rinse was over, the dripping clothes and towels were fed through the wringer, which squeezed the water from them. Daddy rigged up a piece of tin to route the squeezed-out water to the floor so that a new load could be begun. Then after the wringing was done, the towels and garments were taken out back and pinned to a line—everything except unmentionables that Mother made quite sure that the populace of Montevallo would not see.

  All morning long Mother and Dad were running back and forth between customers to take care of the washing. Although today it appears to be a back-breaking job, they never seemed to think it was onerous. I suppose they might have envied people over on Highland Avenue who had automatic washing machines or Mr. Hartley on Shelby Street, who had a gasoline-powered washing machine. I was especially interested in the gasoline washers, as I knew you could take the motor off one of those and hook it up to your bicycle and have a motorized bicycle. Several boys had done it, but I never was able to find an unused gasoline-powered washing machine lying around. When we finally got a machine at home, it was a shiny new electric wringer, and it simplified things greatly for Mother, who no longer had to lug our clothes, including our unmentionables, to the shop on Main Street.

  Harry Miller, the shoeshine boy, started to work for Dad when he was fourteen. He helped Mother and Dad with washing and cleaning, but, of course, his main job was presiding over the shoeshine stand in the barbershop. He was tall and serious, very much aware of his place. He spoke very little, but without a trace of black dialect. I have thought about Harry through the years, and I realize that in doing his job he functioned as an artist, a musician, a physicist, and—perhaps most of all—a psychologist. His very work was high art, and as a small boy I was dazzled by his talents.

  When a customer entered he would ask succinctly, “Shoe shine, Mister?” That usually elicited no more than a nod or a shake of the head, and if it was a nod, the man would climb up into the shoeshine stand, a high structure made of twisted wrought iron, much in the fashion of drugstore furniture. The seat, arms, and back were a tawny oak, glistening from the numerous times customers had slid into the chair. In those days, almost everybody smoked, and there were cigarette burns up and down the arms of the chair.

  Harry’s routine was a wonder to behold, one worthy of praise from the most demanding systems analyst. Normally, the customer pulled up his britches legs, but if he didn’t Harry would roll up the legs. If he was lucky, the customer would be wearing dark socks, but many of the rednecks wore white socks, and Harry would have to take great care not to get even a tiny trace of the polish onto those socks.

  Harry first dusted off the shoes with a dry brush, then followed with a thorough cleaning, this time with a brush too, but with a cleaning liquid added to it. He cleaned vigorously, as he knew that the shine that would follow could be first-rate only if there was no grit or dust on the shoes. He always paid as much attention to the back of the shoes as the front. That pleased one old man so much that he said, “I like that, boy. A person who don’t polish the back of his shoes don’t wipe his ass either.” Harry smiled in response, but he was always quite restrained, not being sure how his responses would be taken by his customers.

  Once the shoes were clean, Harry reached down in his shine box and took out a large tin of Griffin wax polish, turning the wing nut to flip the can open. He then began applying the polish with a soft rag. Dad said that he observed that the number of coats Harry put on corresponded perfectly with the amount of tip the customer gave, but Harry would just grin and deny it.

  As he began to polish, Harry, like Prince Hamlet, was faced with his own troublesome question: to spit or not to spit. Some customers expected him to do a spit shine, but others would have been greatly offended by a black man’s spit landing on his shoes. Harry had to be sensitive about this. In that era, a shoeshine boy did not offend the white man. He said little, remaining silent as racial epithets and bigoted anecdotes spilled from the mouths of his customers. In fact, for many of those whose shoes he shined, it was as if a machine, not a human being, was doing the job. They did not set out to be offensive; they were just too insensitive to realize the implications of their speech or actions. Such was the nature of pre-civil rights small-town Alabama.

  It was when Harry got to the real shining that his artistry shone through the most. He’d take the sh
ining rag in his hands and begin the dittity-dat-dat, dittity-dat-dat rhythms, which ended with a loud pop as he finished the heel of each shoe. No drummer in a big band could have outdone Harry, and when I heard his signature pop at the end I wanted to applaud. Why that would not have been enough to clue the customer that the shine was over I don’t know, but invariably Harry would tap the customer lightly on one shoe to indicate that he was through. Usually the customers extracted a nickel or dime from their overall pockets and handed it to Harry without a word and without even looking at him.

  My friend, Earl Cunningham, Dad’s hard working shoeshine boy. After enlisting and leaving Montevallo, Earl served very successfully in the Army Medical Corps.

  Dad thought the world of Harry and was very sad when he left for the service in World War II. He was one of the first colored people from our area to register. Before he left, Earl Cunningham—who, like Harry, lived “’cross the creek” in the quarters—began to come around, watching Harry and learning everything he could from him. Naturally, when Harry left, Earl took over the job. Earl’s family was hard up, and Dad developed a rather paternal relationship with Earl, getting even closer to him than to Harry. He made sure that he was well-fed, and he bought clothes for him. I was enough younger than Harry that we never really became friends, but Earl and I became close, spending time out back of the shop when things were slack talking over all sorts of things. Of course we didn’t go to school together, and the churches were thoroughly segregated.