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In Memory Of Willie Maddox
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Cool Willie was an exceptional individual
...
The first time I met Willie
Maddox was at the 2004 50th
reunion at the BHS Campus. I was immediately struck by the
extraordinary resemblance he shared with his brother, Buzz. I
could not believe that two brothers could look so much alike.
At the reunion, Willie approached me and asked if he could have
his photo taken with me and Gerard Moreau – who I happened to be
talking with at that moment. Needless to mention, I was more
than proud to be in a photo with Willie because he reminded me
so much of his brother, Buzz – who I knew so well and a person
that I greatly admired.
Remembering his brother Buzz was
like going back five and six decades to the 1940’s and 50’s. No
one was skinner that Buzz Maddox. For whatever reason, Buzz
quit school at an early age and went to work for the Townsend
Brothers Construction company as a laborer building board roads
and laying gas and oil lines all over central and south
Louisiana. The last time that I saw Buzz was about 1953 at the
Bailey theater – and he thrillingly pulled out of his front
pocket a roll of pay checks that he said was worth about three
thousand dollars. That was a lot of money in 1953! I never saw
Buzz again – but his memory was immediately recalled when I saw
Willie at the reunion in 2004.
Both Willie and his brother Buzz
came from a family that was born to hard work. Their father
would walk every morning from his home that was just beyond the
Sid Richardson oil Company warehouse on the Watermelon Bayou to
the crossroads in Eola where the Townsend Bros. Construction
Company was located. Their home, just like the one that I grew
up in - was unpainted – and, also like ours, housed a family
that was used to hard scrabble work.
In the early 1950’s I had the
opportunity to work with Mr. Maddox on a board road project for
the Townsend Brother Construction Company at a location near
Melville. I was impressed by the precision that Mr. Maddox
could nail a large spike in a three-inch board with an axe. In
three full swings of the axe, he would complete that phase of
the work – while it would take other workers four to five swings
to accomplish this feat. Mr. Maddox was a hard worker and Buzz
and Willie inherited a lifetime of knowing how to accept hard
work as a natural way to earn a living.
In
closing, I’m more than proud that “Cool” Willie Maddox asked me
to be in a photo with him – however, in retrospect, I should
have asked him to be in a photo with me.
Like many others who grew up in
that that particularly special place during a very memorable
era, Willie saw a lot, learned a lot and accomplished a lot.
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