It was a November evening in Alabama. The Hopper family loaded into a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne and headed to Posey’s Crossroads. It was Election Day. Day had changed his election voting location from Randolph, Alabama to Posey’s Crossroads which was less than a half mile from our home.
Dad had moved us back from Beloit, Illinois in March 1960. Dad had been registered in Randolph even while we lived in Illinois from1957 to 1960. This had to be 1964 and one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Mom, my sister and two brothers sat in the Chevy as dad entered the polling building which was a car shed which exists until now. Things in the ballot house started to deteriorate when they refused to allow daddy to vote. He had returned back to the house to get the legal documents that verified that daddy had changed his voting place.
Dad walked back into the car shed and produced his documents. What they told dad was that his name was not in alphabetical order and was added to the back of their registration roaster. The irony was that dad was registered and all the men running the voting were personal friends with dad. They often played checkers across the road at our local store/filling station at Land Mart.
There was a big commotion building as faces turned red, shouting continued to get loud, and face to face confrontation grew intense. Then it happened. Escalating, dad began to roll up his long-sleeved shirt. We all sat in the Chevy watching something like at the movie drive end.
Momma said, “Bobby, go get your daddy. Tell him it is not worth it.” What those so-called friends of daddy did not realize, they were about to feel the wrath of my dad. It was a defining moment for the Hopper family.
Dad’s rolling of the sleeves was a signal that some serious “butt kicking” was about to explode. Mom always bought regular shirts for her Hopper man and his three sons. They never fit because we were not regular. We were taller and bigger. I have pictures of us growing up. Regardless of the sleeve, short or long were worn one to two rolls on them. When dad got serious, working or kicking butt, he rolled them higher above the bend of the elbow.
When we lived in Beloit, Illinois, daddy worked at Beloit Ironworks in Beloit Wisconsin. We lived one block from the state line. One morning after a midnight shift, a raucous began across the street at a tavern named The Brown Derby. Police were trying to arrest a drunk. He had escaped and wound up in our back yard. He had wrapped his arms around on a utility pole. There the police had handcuffed him there.
Daddy woke from all the commotion and went out to investigate. He asked the officers what was happening. They said they could not put the man in the patrol car. The drunk did something that most Yankees do not take offence but to Good Old Southern men and boys it is the unpardonable sin. The drunk what’s it to you SOB as he spat in daddy’s face.
Dad slowly removed his wristwatch and his beloved ruby ring and handed them to one of the bystanders as he rolled up his sleeves. With one bow to the jaw of the drunk, he slid down the pole, the officers thanked dad, undone the handcuffs, and laid the unconscious twice smashed intoxicated man in the patrol car.
The person that took dad’s ring and watch gave them to mom as the neighbors gave dad an ovation.
I went into the voting shed and took daddy by the hand as he rolled his sleeves. I was almost twelve years old. Looking at dad with eyes of pity and respect I said, "Momma said to come on that they are not worth it,” She knew dad would do serious damage and be in serious trouble.
The real damage was that we spent the rest of the evening traveling to the county courthouse trying to help daddy vote he never did.
That is one of few times I witnessed my daddy being hurt. We heard him telling the poll men that he fought and was wounded in WWII, that he paid his pole tax (abolished in 1966), and that he was registered. None of the men at the polls had ever served in the military. From that day on, dad never respected or had any relationship with those men.
Not long ago someone posted an Easter picture (below) of my sister, brothers, and me. People wanted to know, “What’s up with these Hopper boys and rolled up sleeves.” As Hank Williams Jr., another Alabama boy would say, “It a family tradition.” We all still do it even though our lovely wives buy us shirts that fit. It’s a habit and reminder of the right to vote.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
II Timothy 1:7 KJV
It is joy to the just to do judgement: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.
Proverbs 21:15 KJV