he told me the guy who was the cook at that little deli/ice cream shop/hamburger shop was his dad
he called him POPS
It sounded funny, he didn’t say it strongly, he just said it
i pressed him on it because it sounded confusing, he dissembled, said,
“Uh, Yeah, uh, he’s my Dad, yeah...”
I mostly only saw the right rear of that guy, he was about 6 foot, slightly heavy but no pot belly, VERY similar to Frank Marshall Davis. HE is the one who served me my meal, so he had to have turned around at some point to give me what ever it was I ate, I honestly dont remember, but I dont have any strong memory of facing him, just seeing him prepare my food from his right rear side
he was wearing a white apron, t-shirt, checkered pants (that I remember), he dressed like a short order cook, nothing to see here, nothing special, he looked like a cook behind a burger counter, he completely fit in
But no doubt, the guy i met told me first he was raised in Indonesia and living in Hawaii with people other than his parents. I dont remember the grandparent’s being mentioned. When I told him where I went in the Marines, when I said Mombassa, he interrupted me and said I WAS BORN THERE! with a slight smile, excited.
He definitely told me he was going to be President one day.
No one from either HMH-463 or HMM-165 wanted to go back with me with their pictures to see the guy. None of my friends I am still in touch with ever remember me asking.
I have one old friend I would like to ask, but he is apolitical, he most likely wound’t say anything, one other home town friend might speak up.
Interesting comment, Race. That fits with the impression I have always had that he actually lived with the Davis family, not with the Dunhams, who were friends perhaps, which provided the opportunity for various snapshots at family gatherings/outings.
1970 was also the year Davis was divorced iirc. Some other arrangement for his care needed to be found. It was 1970 that Madelyn told her relative Virginia Goeldner, in 1982, that they had been looking after him because his mother died. ‘His mother’ might well have meant Helen Davis, she had four or five of her own.