The Way Things Shouldn’t Happen

I was teaching a class last week at Gulf Coast State College on “Presidents and Rabbits.” It wasn’t going well. Most everyone in the class knew far more than I did about George Washington and John Adams. Thomas Jefferson was next in line, and I was trying to think of something noteworthy about him.

As soon as his name came up, class members jumped on his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his famed knowledge on a vast variety of subjects, his foresight in doubling the size of the US with the Louisiana Purchase….

I’m listening, learning, and wondering who is teaching whom in this class when it grew silent as it became my turn to say something discerning about Mr. Jefferson. I cleared my throat. A couple of times. And proclaimed that Thomas Jefferson, noted third president of the United States, and “Founding Father” extraordinaire, had wed the lady that I had always wanted to marry!

Her name was Martha Wayles Skelton.

And her late, dearly departed, husband had left her with not one, but two, sprawling plantations. Which Thomas graciously accepted as part of her dowry. I know what you are thinking, it can’t get any better than that. But wait, it can! A year after the marriage, Martha’s somewhat well-off father died and left her two more plantations.

This is the kind of stuff people dream about. Of course, life often doesn’t work out like the Cinderella story. Some of the plantations came with a fair amount of debt…. And for all his outstanding achievements, Jefferson was not noted for his business acumen.

He died as an admired and much revered icon of early America. But not, sadly, a rich one.

Once upon a time I was rolling all of this over in my seventeen-year-old mind. The only mistake I could see here was not checking the debt ratio. Armed with this safety net, I went looking for a modern-day Martha Jefferson.

Her name was Mary Hadley Hayden.

I met her at a baseball game in Paris, Tennessee. Her expensive scarab bracelet and Lincoln Continental caught my attention as a mutual friend introduced us. She was dating our second basemen. It was no big deal and I didn’t want to interfere with anyone’s relationship. I was moving on in life….

Until one of our pitchers casually mentioned that Mary Hadley’s father owned the bank in town. A couple of games later I caught said pitcher alone in the far corner of the dugout, “Is the bank Mr. Hayden’s only enterprise?”

“Oh, heck no. He owns a sawmill up near Puryear. And I believe he has a half interest in the hardware store. And he owns 5,500 acres of good bottom land down by the Tennessee River. You ought to see the house he lives in out by the Country Club.”

“Do you think he’s in debt with any of this stuff.” See, I’m out thinking the brilliant Thomas Jefferson here.

“Oh, heck no. It’s family money from generations back.”

People, I went all in!

I really liked our second baseman, but all’s fair in love and land grabbing. I sent her a birthday card. I called her late at night when no one was looking. I gave her my very best Frankie Avalon smile. I asked her to hold my billfold (in which I planted a five-dollar bill so she’d think I was well off also) during the baseball games.

I got Bobby Winchester and Bill Kemp, two of our better players to put in a good word for me. I learned to play golf so I could hang out at the Country Club. I took to living part time at the A &W Root Beer stand in hopes she’d stop by for a frosty mug.

I practiced saying “Mary Hadly” with a slight John Wayne tone in my voice. I read that book by Dale Carnegie about “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I offered to do her homework. I left no stone unturned….

Leon tired pretty quickly of this decidedly one-sided amorous affair. “Good Lord, you buy her mother flowers! You pine around all day thinking about her. Yet, you’ve never taken her on a date. You’ve never even brought her by the house. What does this girl look like?”

“IT DOESN’T MATTER!”

Mary Hadley didn’t ever seem to catch any of my sterling qualities. Or my non-sterling ones for that matter. She married a real estate mogul from Lexington and they settled down comfortably in their 14-room mansion overlooking the Tennessee River in the southern section of what ought to be my 5,500 acres.

I met Cathy Cotham a couple of years later at the swimming pool in Trenton. She was young, polite, and she talked to me!

AND her granddaddy lived in that big house up on the hill. It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes’ investigation to find out he was loaded. And that Cathy was his favorite granddaughter.

I bought some flowers the second day I worked at the pool, and walked Cathy home that afternoon….

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com