The Charming Man
By
DARRICK KELHEIN
May 30th. 1930 a charming baby
boy was born. Charming indeed, when he arrived to his new family, he cracked a
smile to the nurse that helped to deliver him. Already flirting at the tender
age of zero, he was an easy delivery for his mother whom had been through this
several times already before. He was the first born boy and would become the
leader of the children in his family. In all there was a total seven siblings,
he was near the middle. He had more sisters than brothers with him being one of
three boys.
How devastating it must have felt for his
mother to have found out that she was pregnant with her first son, coming at
the very beginning of the Great Depression. The depression started September
1929 and nine months later he was born. The family was poor while the father
for whom he was named worked many different jobs being paid menial amounts of
money but somehow made ends meet by just getting by with enough to keep a house
and to have food on the table. The depression lasted for ten years. So during
those early years of the oldest boy’s life there were no new toys or bicycles
or having the kind of foods that we have grown up with. Potatoes was to be the
main food on the table, used almost daily with the children fighting to be the
ones that got the chance to lick the pan that the potatoes were made in.
With the nickname of ‘Patches’ the boy
went to school with hand me down clothes donated from neighbors and friends of
the family which his loving mother mended and patched. Now days it is hard to
imagine not having whatever we wanted to eat; or the thought of keeping clothes
that have worn out or have holes in the knees. We toss away things that during
that time, was considered, nothing wrong, and probably a sin.
The boy charmed his teachers and in some
of the cases was considered a teacher’s pet. He had many friends and many were
girls. This boy excelled in school and in life. He never backed down when there
was trouble and came to his sisters and brothers defense. No one messed with
his family.
As
the ‘Great Depression’ drew to close at the end of the 1930’s, there was new
turmoil for his family to face. The family was of German decent and their name
brought trouble for the family. The Germans were looked upon as an evil people,
as Hitler, the leader of what he claimed as the greatest race was in the
process of trying to take over the world.
With the name ‘Heinkel’ the name was
represented in Germany by a family of the same name that were aviators and
supplied the German cause with aircraft that proved to be major for offensive
causes. So with the name becoming popular to the world, trouble came to this
humble family. The children had to run to school to avoid bullies that attacked
them. This charming man stood his ground protecting, the best that he could,
his brothers and sisters. One night there was a cross that was burned in the
front of the family’s home.
The next day there would be no school, no
going to government food lines. No one left the house except for his father and
the charming young man so that they may remove the charred remains of the burnt
wood. Police came but there was not much that they could do. After a couple
days the children all returned to school. Patches earned a new nickname,
‘Krout’.
As the years went past the charming boy
and his two brothers became well known in their school and neighborhood. They
and a few friends who were also German decent became known as the ‘Wells Street
Gang’. They were not trouble makers however trouble seemed to find them. They
never backed down from anyone and when a brother or a sister or anyone that
could not help themselves young or old, if needed a hand, they would be there
for them.
The boys stayed together all the while
they grew up. If they went into a restaurant or a bar, people would clear a
path and a table would be there for them. They didn’t demand respect but they
got it. The Charming Boy became the Charming Man. Through the years he grew
strong and carried a physic that proved his physical strength. The Charming
Man, great smile, dark hair slicked back, muscles flexed and a natural leader.
The Heinkel family was raised as devout
Catholics. The charming man was an altar boy for a few years and thought to
become a priest. When he graduated high school he went to the Saint Mary’s Seminary
in Baltimore the country’s oldest seminary. He was gone for about one year when
he became sick for home. He returned and worked some jobs in factories until 1950
when he joined the United States Navy. He was a Seaman and was stationed at
Corpus Christi Naval Base in Texas.
The Charming Man was respected by his
fellow sailors and on his twenty first birthday he was greeted in formation to
celebrate. His platoon formed a line and took turns spanking him with a special
paddle made in his honor. On it was displayed a nickname that he remembered
from his past, ‘Krout’. That year also became a more memorable one. He finally
charmed his way into the heart of what became his lifetime friend and wife. Mary
Louise Moorefield, she was sixteen and he was twenty one. Outlandish by today’s
standards but in those times it was the norm.
Two years later in 1953, the family that
the two often talked about became a reality with the birth of the first child
with four more to follow over the next ten years.
Though times would never again be like
when the Charming Man was born he would never forget those times. He always
wanted better for his family. Taking an old fixer upper home and making it home
for most of his children’s growing years until they went on their own. At the
dinner table all food on the plate was to be eaten. ‘Waste not, want not’ was a
term we all came to know. I’m sure that we all used the same term at some time
or another.
The Charming Man loved a cars beauty as
much as he loved a woman’s beauty. He loved Oldsmobile’s but could never afford
one that was new. He bought ones that were in great condition and did most of
the maintenance himself. He told me when I was young; he was trying to instill
in me the value of doing things yourself, that ‘that a fool and his money are
soon parted’. Along with and usually in the same breath, ‘don’t put off for
tomorrow, what you can do today’. It would be bitter cold with the snow blowing
and he would be doing some kind of work on one of his cars. He never had the
luxury of owning a garage until years later and he used it for a wood shop and
for storage.
The Charming Man taught me love for
woodworking. One day when he was making a project he had just finished sanding
a piece and instructed me to feel it. It was real smooth and to smell the
freshly cut and sanded wood. It was just something a person will always
remember. He could use his imagination to create without the use of
instructions, just as a composer has an ear for the music.
The Charming Man had a green thumb and was
a gardener though he could never figure out how to get grass to grow in our family’s
front yard; he succumbed to letting the mighty oak tree win the battle.
The Charming Man was a dreamer and I suppose
that is something I inherited from him, I know he dreamed of the heavens above
and this was something that his father shared with him, I still remember many
nights with both my father and my grandfather looking at the heavens through a
telescope and my grandfather’s binoculars. We looked at the planets and the
constellations way past our bed times.
My father through the years always was
charming to girls and women even when he was in pain and in the hospital he
would charm. If at a restaurant he would charm the waitress. So in sickness and
in health The Charming Man stayed charming and will stay that way to the end.
