From the time he was born, my Dad was handsome. Movie star handsome. And a good dancer. We Smith kids would beg him to teach us “the plumber’s waltz”. And the jitterbug? Outstanding! He excelled at any sport that he tried. And, he could fix anything, including broken bikes and broken dolls. The cellar was filled with the tools of his plumber’s trade.
When his six kids played cards with him at the kitchen table, using toothpicks for our betting chips, he did not let us win. Ever. You had to earn it. Bowling? Mow them down. And when we got a bumper pool table, and put it down in the basement of Russett Road, he would play with us for hours. Neighborhood kids would come to the house, lay flat on the lawn by a cellar window, and tap their piece of chalk on the glass to try and get into the house, and into the game.
He and Madeline both grew up in Dorchester, but they met at the summer dances at the Monponsett Inn. His family cottage was on Second Avenue in Halifax, her Bobolink cottage was at 1066 Monponsett Street, right on the town line of Halifax and Hanson. Right away, Grandma McLean knew that something was up. She would sneak down to the dance and wait for the kids to come out, and then follow her daughter home at a discrete distance to make sure there was no hanky panky. In vain, it turned out.
My father was a complicated man. Well, no, actually, he was not. My relationship with him was complicated. Alcohol complicates everything. But in those early years, before the house and the mortgage and the six kids and the college tuition bills, Madeline and Joe were the “it” couple. “Embraceable You” was my mother’s favorite song. And if you look closely, you can see a little young Sinatra in my father’s face. Movie star handsome, both of them. As we grew up, we dubbed it the “Hon and Dearie” show. He was Hon, and she was Dearie.
I got married in March of 1993. My Dad passed that October. The lights went dim on the Hon and Dearie Show.
Lynn Smith 