A brief introduction
Dootnie
My Dad, Frank Reid Sr., passed away on June 27 – just a few weeks ago. After the trauma of his not-entirely-unexpected but too-soon death from complications related to renal cancer, my siblings and I have had some time to reflect and remember some of the things we loved about him. He left us lots of wonderful memories that we will treasure and burnish, like fine pieces of family-heirloom jewelry, but one of the best was a memoir that he wrote over a period of several years in the late ’90s and the early part of the 2000s. It was a book that my sister Shannon and her husband Joseph gave him in 1997 called “A Father’s Legacy”. Full of all kinds of prompts to jog his memory, she hoped that he would record answers for our later benefit.
I had heard my brother and sisters mention it from time to time, and I definitely heard stories from it straight from my father’s mouth, but I didn’t get a full copy of it until after he died. As Shannon recently said, “he put a lot more into it than I ever expected.” At about 100 pages, it is a treasure trove of my father’s memories, beliefs, aspirations, and wisdom. As a way to honor my Dad, I want to write about him, and explain some of why I thought he was a great man. Not great in the way that our world reckons greatness today -achievements, wealth, power, and influence- but great in the impact that he had on the folks that were lucky enough to meet him and get to know him. In the process, I want to share some of his memoirs – his words about things that were important in his life. I think you’ll enjoy them, and laugh, or think a bit about your Dad, and appreciate who he is, and the role he’s played in making you what you are. Excerpts from his memoir are presented exactly as he typed them – he made a few spelling mistakes, but I don’t think they detract from the stories at all.
By the way – the title, Dootnie Speaks, comes from a blog that I got him to start writing when he first started treatments for renal cancer. I didn’t know about his nickname Dootnie until then. He said his Aunt (the proper Southern pronunciation being ‘aint’, and not ‘ant’ or ‘awnt’) Alma used to call him that when he was a boy, and he didn’t care what she called him, because she used to cook him breakfast sometimes at her apartment down the street from his house.
The Great Marble Drop
Dad used to entertain us with stories about growing up in the Highland Park neighborhood in North Richmond.
He would captivate us with tales of good times and bad, of jobs and games, of girlfriends and bullies, in and around their home on Letcher Avenue, and around Richmond. The Great Marble Drop had to be one of the funniest:
One day while attending Chandler Junior High School, the school scheduled a special assembly to allow the Safeway Company time to discuss job opportunities (encouragement to get 15 year old students to drop out of school and go to work at the grocery store at minimum wage or less for the rest of their lives).
Somebody had the genius (I cannot guess who) to plan the Great Marble Drop. To understand the master plan, one has to know that the Auditorium at Chandler has a pitched floor, probably about 15 or 20 degrees. The floor was oiled bare wood and the seats all had steel legs.
When the clock clicked to 10:00 exactly, 800+ kids all dropped a handful of marbles on the wooden floor. The sound was unbelievable. Thousands of marbles rained on the floor, rolled down the grade hitting steel legs, and ringing beautiful chimes as they made their way to the orchestra pit. You absolutely could not hear your self think for at least three or four minutes. It was a virtual cacophony of devilish, delightful sound. Teachers went into gestapo mode and herded us all back to our homerooms where the inquisitions began. They never found out who the ring-leader was, in spite of threats to expel everybody. The next assembly, each class was separated by an empty row of seats and a teach would walk up and down between the classes to watch for other pranks. It never happened again, and I hope it never will.
It was a once in a life time spectacular prank and I will never forget the look on the Safeway guy’s face. Of course, the assembly was canceled and I honestly believe it might have encouraged a few young heads full of crap to stay in school.
We all thought it was our civic duty to pull this one off.
We never got him to say so, but I think Dad was the genius who devised the Great Marble Drop.
