No Hill Too High for a Stepper Read online

  No Hill Too High for a Stepper

  Memories of Montevallo, Alabama

  Mike Mahan

  with Norman McMillan

  NewSouth Books

  Montgomery

  Published in cooperation with

  The Cahaba Trace Commission

  Voices Along the Trace Series

  NewSouth Books

  105 S. Court Street

  Montgomery, AL 36104

  Copyright © 2014 by Mike Mahan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama in cooperation with The Cahaba Trace Commission Voices Along the Trace Series.

  The “Montevallo As I Remember It” map, printed in an alternate edition of this text, can be viewed in full at www.newsouthbooks.com/stepper/map.

  ISBN: 978-1-60306-357-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-358-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933019

  Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

  To My Family:

  To Linda, “Neeno,” the smartest, most intellectual, most serious, most beautiful, most understanding, most patient, and most loving wife a guy could have.

  To Stann Mahan Garris and Miki Mahan Heaton, my two very successful daughters, both of whom during their lives have resided at my childhood home, 159 Shelby Street. There Stann conceived two of my grandsons, both of whom have lived there. Miki, who was conceived in the basement of the house on Shelby Street, grew up and matured with Big Mama and Poppy upstairs in that house.

  To the boys. To my caring, receptive, athletic, and loving grandson Michael, now twenty-five years old, who visited regularly at 159 Shelby Street. To Jacob, now twenty-two years old, a smart, talented, beautiful grandson, who is the phrase “everybody loves Jacob.” To grandson Jesse, now eighteen years old, a man of few words, whose academic, athletic, and musical abilities speak for him. Both Jacob and Jesse spent their first night out of the hospital on Shelby Street, and there both shared many of the same experiences of fun, discipline, pain, and pleasure I did when I resided there.

  To all of the above, I hope that this narrative will give you something to talk about when I am dead and gone.

  Contents

  Preface

  Part I - Family

  1 - Beginnings

  2 - 159 Shelby Street

  3 - Momma and Aunt Lucille

  4 - Tootsie and Sister

  5 - Maggie

  6 - Ancestors

  7 - Alan Mahan

  Part II - Neighbors

  8 - The Elite of Shelby Street

  9 - Other Shelby Street Neighbors

  10 - Frog Holler

  11 - Highland Avenue

  12 - Alabama College

  13 - Country People

  Part III - Businesses on Shelby and Main Streets

  14 - Shelby Street Business and Medical Center

  15 - Main Street

  Part IV - Getting Out of Town

  16 - Wanderlust

  17 - Montebrier

  Part V - Living the Life

  18 - Schooldays

  19 - Music

  20 - Having Fun

  21 - Alcohol

  22 - Girls

  23 - The Military

  24 - Masonry

  25 - My First Jobs

  26 - The Organ Business

  Afterword

  Index

  About the Author

  Preface

  In 1983, David Ward, one of my friends from Highland Avenue in Montevallo, Alabama, published a short narrative entitled Lamar and Me, which described a special friendship that developed between him and a neighbor, Lamar Appleton, as they grew up in Montevallo. So much of what was in David’s book rang true to me that I began to think about how important growing up in a small, diversified, academic community like Montevallo had been to me as well. And many of my contemporaries in Montevallo felt the same way.

  With the success of Lamar and Me, a group of us—including Ed Givhan, Joy Holcombe, Gene Baldwin, Barbara Belisle, me, and, of course, David Ward and Lamar Appleton—thought it might be fun to write a book on our lives in Montevallo. Each would write a chapter or two, after which David would put his expert editorial skills to work. In 2000, the book, entitled Time Has Made a Change in Me, was completed and published, and, judging by the comments of readers, well-received.

  My chapter in Time Has Made a Change in Me was called “In Praise of Shelby Street.” The other authors were from Highland Avenue and other parts of town, but I was the only Shelby Street or Frog Holler contributor. After the book came out, Ed Givhan would tell me repeatedly, “Mahan, you have only just begun. You need to write a book about growing up on Shelby Street.” Lifelong friends, we shared an interest in Alabama history, and he seldom said anything I didn’t listen to seriously. He and I had hoped to do a book on historical homes of the Black Belt of Alabama, along with photographer Chip Cooper and Robert Gamble of the Alabama Historical Commission, but both Ed and Chip Cooper had other books to complete, and Ed and his wife, Peggy, were busy restoring a portion of the old family farm near Browns, Alabama. That project was stalled, however, when Ed became very ill. Still, when we were together he seemed always to bring up a book on Shelby Street. I was in his hospital room two days before he died on November 15, 2004. During that visit, he said in a quiet whisper that I had to get busy writing about Shelby Street. For me that was a great commission, and I have been committed to writing a book on the subject ever since.

  Another person who urged me to write a memoir is my close friend Marty Everse, who is also devoted to Alabama history. I want to pay special tribute to Marty, who has always been able to bring my blue-sky projects down to earth and has helped me bring many dreams to fruition. I also owe him many thanks for his many hours scanning and editing the many photographs contained in this book. And to his wonderful wife Helon, better known as “Sweet Pea,” thanks for sharing. Marty and I have worked together with the Alabama Historical Commission, the Alabama Historic Ironworks Commission, and the Cahaba Trace Commission, which among other things publishes books on the Cahaba Trace region which is made up of counties that border the Cahaba River system. The Commission established a series of memoirs called “Voices Along the Trace.” I have written this book with that series in mind.

  If any readers enjoy this manuscript, it is because of my friend and writing partner, Norman McMillan. Without his help, this narrative would not have come to completion. On many mornings, I arrived at Norman and Mama Joan’s home at seven o’clock , and Norman and I would spend time talking about the people and events that are included in this memoir or sitting at the computer revising the manuscript. To Norman and Joan, all I can say is thanks, thanks, and more thanks for sharing their home and Norman’s talent and time.

  I must also pay tribute to Misty Jones, a lady who has helped immeasurably in putting my thoughts on paper. Without her, this book would have been impossible.

  The petticoat dynasty at the Brierfield Dental office have tolerated, helped, and put up with me for a combined 126 years. To Margie, Betty, Glenda, Sandy (who for years has said, “Come on, Doc, we got to go to work”), Crystal, Amy, Kristy, and Renee (Muffet), I can only say thanks for your putting up with this and encouraging me. Special thanks go to two dear friends, Steve Huffstutler and Tim Wilson, for lending their editorial skills to this effort.

  The many photographs in this book came from family and friends, many of whom are mentioned in the
memoir. I want to particularly thank the University of Montevallo and its archivist Carey Weatherly for helping with the photographs.

  To my classmate in elementary and high school and lifelong friend Emily Pendleton, I cannot count how many phone calls she answered helping me with dates and names. Thanks and I love you, Emily.

  To Katie Johnston, I owe thanks for her many hours of copying, numbering, and ordering the photographs as well as for placing into three-ring binders all the drafts Norman sent.

  My chief motivation for writing this memoir has been to pay tribute and say thanks to the many individuals who made Shelby Street and Montevallo a launch pad for my life.

  Part I

  Family

  1

  Beginnings

  When my wife Linda and I celebrated our thirty-ninth anniversary in 2001, I rented a room for the night in the tower of the McKibbon House Bed and Breakfast in Montevallo, Alabama. It somehow seemed appropriate to spend an amorous night there, as it was in that very room that I was conceived during the fall of 1933. My parents, Red and Ethel Mahan, had an apartment in this rambling two-story high Victorian house on the corner of Boundary and Shelby Streets, living there with Tootsie and Sister, Ethel’s teen-aged daughters by a previous marriage. My mother was about forty-three—eight years older than Red—when she became pregnant, and as her pregnancy advanced he was quite solicitous of her, becoming increasingly fretful that bearing a child at her age could present dangerous problems. He decided to take what was an unusual step in those days: to send her to Birmingham where she could get the best possible care. There she stayed with members of her family for a few weeks, finally entering the South Highland Infirmary for the delivery.

  The McKibbon House, where it all started. Since its construction in 1900, this grand Victorian structure has functioned first as a private residence, then as four apartments, back to a home, and now as the McKibbon House Bed and Breakfast Inn.

  June 29, 1934, was a dark, threatening day. There was a churning and rumbling in the west as Ethel entered the hospital, and the sky got darker and darker as her labor progressed. High winds began to blow, harder and harder, and in time it became obvious that a cyclone—the then common name for a tornado—was coming. As Ethel was wheeled into the delivery room, lightning flashed and thunder cracked, wind rattled the window frames, and heavy rains pelted against the panes. Then, just as I was being delivered, it happened: a cyclone hit South Highland Infirmary with force. When I was finally taken to the nursery, a janitor was still sweeping up broken glass from blown-out nursery windows and workers were tacking up a tarpaulin to keep the rain out.

  So I was told in family lore.

  I was of course blissfully unaware of all this, lying snug in my bunting, but everyone in Montevallo knew the story soon: Stanley Michael Mahan Jr. had been born in a whirlwind. Later on, some of my friends would say that I have lived in a whirlwind ever since, and I’m bound to say that they have a point.

  The Great Depression was ravaging the nation at the time of my birth. Because times were so hard, my father had been forced to sell his Ford coupe. When my mother and I were released from South Highland, he got Mr. Robert Holcombe, who ran the local Independent Grocers Association (IGA) store, to bring us back to Montevallo in his large black sedan. Our route to Montevallo was south on Highway 31 to Calera and west on Highway 25 to Montevallo. Although the road from Alabaster to Montevallo was more direct, it was not paved, and we, like most people, shunned it. Mother thought I needed a soft, smooth ride on a paved road since I had arrived in a cyclone.

  In Montevallo, Mr. Holcombe turned off Highway 25 at Shelby Street, crossed over the railroad track, went past the cotton gin and ice plant, crossed the little red bridge over Shoal Creek, came up out of Frog Holler, and proceeded up Shelby Street past the Presbyterian Church on the right, turning to the left into the driveway of what would be my home until I went off to college. Daddy had rented this brand-new small white bungalow from Mr. Pete Givhan, landlord for several families on Shelby Street.

  By all reports, my parents were doting, and I came to love them very much. My father, a barber by trade, had brilliant red hair, thereby gaining his nickname. I always associated him with rhythm. He walked in a loose, rhythmic way, and he stropped his razor and clicked his scissors in a rhythmic pattern. A compulsive key and coin rattler, he could never sit still. Every time he made the walk between the shop and our house, which was two blocks down Shelby Street, he invariably took two steps between the marked sections of the concrete sidewalk, always in exactly the same tempo.

  My father, Stanley “Red” Mahan, making music and trying to make time with an unknown Brierfield beauty under the watchful eyes of her father.

  If anyone ever relished life more than Red Mahan, I don’t know it. School was a drag, he thought, so he stopped going after the ninth grade. There were many pleasant activities he would much rather give his time to, and in many ways his ending of his formal education was only the beginning of his real passion to learn.

  As a young boy Red developed a great love of music, and when he was a teenager he took up the mandolin and guitar. Before he married, he played off and on with several bands in Montevallo or Bibb County. Many years later, one of his fellow musicians, banjo player Cody Battle, lived near me in Brierfield. By then he was pretty much a hopeless drunk, but he remembered fondly the fun they had playing for both square dancing and round dancing. At some point Dad bought Battle’s banjo for me. Dad also developed quite a reputation for his square dance calling and continued to call throughout his life.

  Red Mahan courting on the Thomas Mill bridge in Bibb County.

  Once Dad told me that it was a wonder his Martin guitar had survived those years, as once when the guitar was new a fight had broken out and he had been forced to crown one of the combatants with it. Luckily, his brother-in-law, Jim Splawn, a noted carpenter, glued and screwed it back together, and he played that guitar when Dad was courting Ethel, he played it with his buddies after work in his barbershop, he played it at church. He even played that Martin guitar when courting his second wife, Miss Opal, whom he married when he was eighty years old.

  In addition to Cody Battle’s banjo, I still have Dad’s Martin guitar, which I still play on occasion. To hold both these instruments in my hands is thrilling to me, as it puts me in touch with the musical traditions that inspired in me my great love of music.

  Growing into manhood, Dad became a champion dancer, equally at home with a buck and wing, which was a complicated fast dance, or with a waltz. He entered dancing contests throughout central Alabama and became well known as a high-spirited young man. Some called him a confirmed bachelor; others called him a rounder. He chased women shamelessly, and he was seldom refused. Women and music went together for him, and many photographs were taken of him playing the mandolin with an adoring beauty by his side.

  Besides women, Red loved the trains of his day, the ones propelled by steam engines. On numerous occasions he was heard to say, “If it don’t have iron wheels and blow smoke, it ain’t worth a damn.” His brother-in-law Vernon Hubbard, his brother Allen, and his sister Lois were all telegraphers for the railroad, and that was what he aspired to. But since no telegrapher job was available, at the age of seventeen he took a job as a brakeman for the GM&O Railroad, working the Selma to Meridian, Mississippi, line.

  Red quickly grew weary of his job as a brakeman, which kept him away from home most of the time. Living in dusty boarding houses in Meridian became too much for him, and he decided to quit the railroad. The Wilton Barbershop was across the tracks from the train depot in Wilton, two miles southwest of Montevallo, and when he was home he would go in and watch the barbers, learning to cut hair by observation. He asked for a job, and he was lucky enough to get it. The location of the shop made it accessible to railroad personnel, locals, and travelers. Dad told me that he could do a haircut in the time it took the engineer to load the
tender with water and coal and for the conductor to board the new passengers.

  It was the Roaring Twenties when Dad got into the barbering business. At that time, girls were all getting feather bobs in barbershops, and Dad always had an eye out for opportunity. He determined that he should relocate to Montevallo, where there were numerous female students at Alabama College, a women’s liberal arts school, who might use his services, tonsorial or otherwise. In 1923, he bought a small barbershop on Main Street from Mr. R. A. Tatum, who had cut hair there for many years. Dad cleverly advertised his new business in the newspaper as “Red’s Bobher Shop,” and business was quite good, both male and female.

  Following in the footsteps of his older sister Lois and brothers Cary, Jesse, and Allen, Dad got on with the railroad. He is standing on the right side of the cowcatcher with unidentified co-workers on a Georgia, Mobile, and Ohio steam engine.

  In time, Red decided what he really needed was a beauty parlor in the back of his shop. The only problem was that there was not an available beautician in Montevallo to work for him. So he went to the Magic City Beauty School in Birmingham to inquire about a graduate to hire, and there he found a divorcee named Mary Ethel Wood. The next week he drove up to get her in his coupe, taking along one of his girlfriends. Poor Ethel had to ride back to Montevallo in the rumble seat of his two-door, five-window coupe with all her luggage crammed around her, but she didn’t complain. She had two teen-aged daughters to support.

  Red had a room in the McKibbon House, and he managed to get quarters for Ethel and the girls there, too. Ethel was a real looker with a wonderful smile, excellent anatomy, and a great personality, and before long Red came to look on Ethel as more than an employee. Soon their working relationship became a love affair, and within a year the two were married. Red embraced Tootsie and Sister, who were teenagers, as his own daughters, though he never officially adopted them. They called him Daddy Red, and he grew to love them and happily supported them.