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Jess

My brother, Jesse, was about 19 years older than me so he left home soon after I was born. I didn’t know him very well as I was growing up but I regarded him as someone special and looked forwarded to his visits from Kinston where he had settled. He seemed more like a favorite uncle than a brother.

My mother told me that Jess was a sickly child and suffered from a stomach problem all his life. That didn’t exempt from farm work and it probably influenced him to leave home as early as possible. He eventually landed a job in a Kinston club named The Ferris Wheel which was owned by a Mr. Ferris whom Jess spoke highly of. Mr. Ferris apparent thought well of Jess as well because he would loan him his car to visit us in Pamlico County.

Jess was a fastidious person. He was the kind that dirt would not stick to and it seemed impossible for him to wrinkle or soil his clothes. He was the first “neatnik” I ever met.

Every time he would visit us he’d find me at my shaggy worst, needing a haircut badly. It seemed that he’d always greet me with a quarter and tell me to get a haircut. That was an ordeal during my childhood because none of the barbers I knew had electric clippers and they snatched out as many hairs as they sheared. No wonder I have so little hair today. I sure could use all those hairs they snatched out of my scalp when I went for those 25 cent haircuts.

Jess showed up in Mr. Ferris’ 1940 Chevy one afternoon. After visiting our parents a short time he loaded up his girl cousins and took off for the canal bank at Hobucken where they could buy beer. As usual, Jess was immaculately dressed in a white short sleeved rayon shirt and blue slacks with creases that looked like they’d cut you.

I don’t think he ever admitted it but we felt that he probably let one of the girls drive the car from Hobucken that afternoon. In any case, the car landed upside down in a roadside ditch between Hobucken and Mesic. They all looked like drowned rats when they they walked home and Jess had a shirt pocket full of mud.

Later Jess left the club and served an apprenticeship as a baker at Dainty Maid Bakery in Kinston. He became quite skilled at that trade and learned to whip up a cake from scratch or roll out a pie shell thin enough to read through and deliciously flaky. He handled those pie shells as if they were canvas and I never saw him tear one.

After I became an adult and visited Jess, I learned that if he offered you cake or pie he meant he was willing to bake for you. My kids loved to visit him!At some point he left the bakery and went on the road delivering bread and pastry for Dainty Maid. I have fond rememberances of riding the route with him about 1943. For breakfast he would have a cup of coffee with something from a bottle in it (I later learned that it was Vodka) and he’d give me a hot cinnamon bun fresh from the bakery oven along with a carton of milk. His route ran from Kinston all the way through Pamlico County.Jess was drafted into the Navy during World War 2 and spent seventeen weeks at Bainbridge, Maryland before they conceded that he was physically unfit for military service. His younger brother, Harry, was also drafted and would have preferred the Navy but was color blind so he was given no choice but the infantry.He obviously did himself no good healthwise because he was an alcoholic from an early age until his death from a heart attack in March 1985. He died in the hospital desperately wanting a drink. He left a widow and six children.I rarely go for a haircut today without recalling all of those 25 cent haircuts he bought for me when I was a little boy. I also frequently remember the neat Red Ryder Daisy BB gun he gave me for Christmas in 1940.

I never told him I loved him but I hope he realized it...