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A Smile On His Face And A Shine On His Shoes
October, 2005
His business
card read W. L. (Bill) Dunn but my mother called him Len and we
called him Papa. I thought I knew him well. As the youngest, he
had a little more time to dote on me than on the others growing
up during the earning and yearning years.
He'd sing "Come Sit By My Side Little Darlin'" and wink
as he trilled over the lines. As I said, I thought I know him
well. Yesterday, I found another, earlier, version of a young
man just going about his business without a thought in the world
that I would one day be his daughter.
I've
been looking over the now available Federal Census records from
1930 and enjoyed seeing the recognized address where the family
had lived before I was born. I joined Ancestry.com and filled
in the blanks. In the International Database, My mother's entire
family came up, the Bells of Prince Edward Island, Canada. I found
copies of my two uncles' army enlistment applications filled out
with firm hands and a willingness to die for their country. One
of them did, at Vimy Ridge during the last week of the war. That
information was already known to me but not to them. George Bell's
destiny is found in Canada's Military Database.
The extent
of information available to future generations is rich, indeed,
but I didn't know how very rich it would become to me in just
mere seconds at the keyboard. I put my father William Leonard
Dunn into the blanks, born in Canada. I chose All Directories
rather than Census alone.
There it was in an instant. World War I Draft Registration Card.
It was filled out by hand, but not his hand. His handwriting was
very distinctive. I hesitated to believe it could be Papa.
The birthday was the same. His home address in Roxbury, Massachusetts
was in the back of my mind as a place the family once lived. He
was married to a Caucasian, that would be Mama, and had three
children. All of that fits. Medium height and weight, blue eyes
and blonde hair. Check! That would be right although I only knew
him as prematurely gray.
I continued scrolling to the bottom of the form and just as if
he jumped out and said "Boo!" I saw his signature. Chills
ran through me. Here was a 27 year old man registering for the
draft as required by law. I don't know about eligibility with
three children, but I can see him standing
there now, big as life, smiling as he answered the questions:
Trade?
"Salesman." Firm? "McCaskey Register Company."
In my lifetime, Papa sold heavy equipment -- like Lorain Cranes
and Johns Manville insulations. I had never heard of his working
for McCaskey's. I looked it up. And, in the years he would have
been selling, that particular register was the number one choice
at gas stations. The innovations were the ability to key in number
of gallons as well as price per gallon, a precursor to the "boda-bing"
which takes our cash and delivers change today. That sounds to
me like a piece of equipment every gas station on the road would
want -- unless they were hit by some major calamity, like a depression,
a Great Depression, and that was just around the corner.
As I held the printed out form in my hands, I let my thoughts
wonder about his situation then while at the same time placing
him in age-related places. At 27, he was younger than any of my
children. At 27 he would have been firmly set in the ways he carried
into the years that I knew him: he never came to the table without
his suit jacket. When I said yes or no, I'd better follow it with
Mama or Papa.
His blue eyes would twinkle delight or flash fury in an instant
-- sometimes the same instant. He loved to tell jokes and always
had one for his clients. Unfortunately, he always laughed his
way through the telling and was doubled over before the punch
line. Yet, everyone listened with joy
and with laughter all around.
He yielded his higher education to a career in professional hockey
in Canada and then found his niche in Sales. When anyone asked
him how they could get a job in Sales, he'd say, "put a smile
on your face and a shine on your shoes."
"That's all?" they'd ask.
"Well, that gets you in the door," he'd say, "after
that, you shake their hand and use their name."
"And that's all?" they'd continue.
"Conversation. Easy banter. It'll come to you," he'd
say.
They'd probably be thinking, easy for him -- and it was easy for
him.
He played the violin but fiddled; he played every stringed instrument
but no one was allowed to play a horn for the "blow-fish"
look it promoted after awhile.
I didn't know this young man who signed this form, but I came
to know him well in his life after 50 and again today as listed
in my "ancestry.com." He held his pen firmly June 8,
1917 and scrolled his name with confidence. I like that.
I don't recall his ever giving me advice and yet I have that same
confidence that doors will open for me. From what I've been told,
I have a gift for gab, no doubt developed while Papa and I were
shining his shoes.
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