Bob Thomas Writes

Solitaire

The Norman Rockwell painting “Solitaire” depicts a man seated in the bed of a boarding house room, playing solitaire on his suitcase. I have a small original print in my home that I look at daily.  It reminds me of my dad.  When he started traveling for Schwinn Bicycle Company in the early 1950′s, this was the type of place he often stayed — a boarding house in some little town in the South.

One summer, when I was about 10 years old, I traveled with him and we stayed in a boarding house in Washington,NC that looked very much like the Rockwell painting. We shared the bed and we ate at the big dining table with the other boarders, mostly salesmen. A Wildlife Officer was also staying there.  He asked me if I liked boating and I told him I had never been in a boat. He offered to take Dad and me for a boat ride after dinner.

The boat was a small ‘rowboat’ with a motor, but to me it was just as exciting as a yacht. We spend about an hour riding on thePamlicoRiver. The boat had only one seat, for the driver. Dad and I took our places on a tackle box. I sat between his legs and he kept his arms around me the whole time, turning my entire body in the direction of something interesting.

When the ride was over, we sat on the front porch overlooking the river until it was dark and talked about our adventure with the other boarders. At the time, I felt grown up and “one of the guys” as we all scratched, spit, cussed a little and drank our beer (or Nehi Big Orange drinks.)  When we returned to our room, rather than wait our turn in the communal bathroom, Dad and I washed in the sink and went to bed.

The next day, we drove toMoreheadCity.  Dad called on his dealer, then we went to lunch at Captain Bill’s Seafood restaurant. He sat me on a stool at the counter and told the waitress to “feed this boy shrimp ’til he pukes” and I ate boiled shrimp until I couldn’t eat anymore (stopping just short of puking!) That afternoon we went over toAtlanticBeachand walked in the sand, wet our feet in the ocean and picked up a few shells.

Our next stop was Greenway’s Harley Davidson inFayetteville,NC. As well as the motorcycles, they sold Schwinn Bikes, Go Carts, appliances and other stuff. While Dad did business with Mr. Greenway, I sat on every motorcycle, played on the Go Carts and wandered the store — a great place for a curious kid to visit.

Dad asked me to tell Mr. Greenway about my boat trip.  As I talked, I became more excited and they laughed like crazy at my story. (It was years later when I realized they were laughing at my excitement, not my story.) To top the day off, Mr. Greenway let me take my first Go Cart ride in the parking lot. For the rest of my life, every time I saw Mr. Greenway, he asked if I had been on any boat rides lately.

Our next stop was inLillington,NC. The shop owner (or he could have been a customer) was a former Pool Champion and told me about winning a tournament by “stabbing himself in the leg” with his pocketknife to stop someone else from beating him. It unnerved his opponent so much he missed the shot. Then, right there in the shop, the storyteller pulled out his knife out of his pocket and said, “Like this!” and stabbed his leg. (As it turned out, the leg was fake — made of wood or cork — but it definitely was a memorable thing to witness.)

On that trip, and one or two others, I met a bike mechanic who “nailed” his hand to the workbench. (A trick.) Another shop owner showed me the souvenirs from his time as a prisoner of war during World War II and shared some of his experiences after being shot down overGermany. InCharlotte, there was a bike mechanic who could blow smoke out of his ear. I heard hundreds of jokes — some risque’, some just plain dirty. My dad always prefaced his joke with, “I’d better not ever hear you say this!” I realized that a good joke heard inEastern NCwould make its way toSouthern Georgiaon my dad’s lips in about two weeks. Often, when he entered a shop, the greeting was, “Tell us a joke, Bill!”

On another trip, Dad took a friend and me toAsheville,NCto see them film the movie “Thunder Road.” We sat on the hill over the tunnel and watched them wreck cars all day long just to make one scene in the movie. I still catch the movie every time it’s on TV.

This is just a simple little story from a child’s memory (and I’m not positive these memories are one-hundred percent accurate after fifty-six years), but they’re close — and they’re the ones I prefer to believe.

About twenty years later, as I did the same job for Schwinn Bicycle Company, I also entered dozens of bike shops to the greeting, “Tell us a joke” — and I always did. (Some of them were 20 years old.)

As I worked, I began to realize just how lonely it is being a “road warrior” salesman. How hard it is to wake up in a motel and not know where you are. How sorry you feel for yourself when you’re sick, have a cold or are just tired. I did the job for only two years.  Dad did it for over twenty.
I understand now that sometimes the mettle of a man is not measured until it’s too late to say “Thanks.”